She'll Always Be My Bee
by Traveler Of Many Lands
Summary: Sometimes his name is William, later it's Sherlock. However, the Bee always stays by his side through thick and thin. Until the day she flipped over a table and stormed out, leaving her overdosed little brother behind her and her older brother pleading for her to turn back. A story told in two acts and with one intermission, starring one Florence Margaret Holmes.
1. Overture: The Cyclist

**PROLOGUE**

 **The Cyclist**

In.

Out.

Inhale.

Exhale.

 _Breathe._

Florence Margaret stared down at her bicycle's handlebars as she crammed herself in the alley overlooking Bart's hospital. She desperately tried to focus on something other than her younger brother's curly mop of hair starkly standing out from the heathery gray sky. The shining chrome of the handlebars on her bicycle was just as bright as they had been on the day her brothers gave it to her. Despite the slight chill, Florence was sweating underneath the dark beanie shoved onto her head. She was tempted to remove it and feel the breeze whisk through her hair, but she knew that the earpiece that she'd attempted to shove into her right ear would fall out if she removed the hat and she might miss an important order.

"The Beekeeper is still on the roof." The voice of Mycroft's PA, Anthea, sounded through Florence's earpiece. They had struck up a friendship after Florence had ended up waiting for Mycroft awkwardly outside his office with her and they had gotten to talk with each other. "I'm still waiting for his signal," Anthea informed Florence and all the Homeless Network they'd recruited to do something that Florence thought she'd never do: help Florence's younger brother fake his death.

"When I call your name, please report in," Anthea said softly. "All right...doctors?"

"Here," a few people whispered.

"Good, how about nurses and other personnel?"

"Ready," more people responded.

"All right. Bystanders all here?"

"Present," a chorus of overlapping voices said.

"Mattress?"

"Here," some more people muttered into their earpieces.

"And Bee?"

Florence gulped. She hadn't expected for Mycroft to use their nickname for her as her codename, so it gave her a shock to be referred to as such.

"Bee, are you there?" Anthea asked again.

"I'm here," Florence whispered.

"All right, everyone. The Beekeeper is still on the roof, talking to The Spider. We're still waiting for a signal. _Please remain at your positions_. Over," Anthea concluded.

Suddenly, a _crack_ sounded faintly from the Bart's rooftop. Florence's heartbeat thudded in her chest. _Sherlock, you all right up there?!_

"Did you hear that?" Florence gasped.

A chorus of hushed _yeses_ answered into Florence's ear. A couple of minutes (or was it seconds?) passed, and then Florence's eyes widened as her earpiece burst to life again.

"Alert!" Anthea called suddenly. "All into position, the call is _Lazarus._ I repeat, all into position! The call is _Lazarus_!"

"No. Oh, God, no!" Florence whispered, recalling a conversation she'd had with Mycroft just weeks before.

" _So we're going to be making John suffer, Mycroft? And Greg? And Mrs. Hudson? So we're going to make them all suffer?!"_

" _Sherlock has to look like he has died, Bee. That's the whole point of_ Lazarus."

" _But Myc...I don't know if I can bring myself to do something like that."_

" _Do you want to save lives, Florence? Because if things go a certain way, we will HAVE to do this. And this will be the ONLY way to save everyone's life."_

" _Fine. I will do it, Myc, but that does not mean that I like this method at all."_

She clambered onto her bike and tensed her legs, ready to go. From her stakeout point, she could see some of the Homeless Network dragging a large blue inflatable cushion behind the ambulance station. A black cab pulled up and deposited a confused John Watson, desperately talking on the phone.

Florence turned her gaze to the Bart's rooftop. Sherlock was standing at the edge, a hand clasped to his ear. John took a few steps forward, looking all around for Sherlock. Then, his gaze magnetized towards the figure on the roof and he stepped back.

"God. Oh. God." Florence was whispering frantically, her heart pounding. Her life, injected with images of her two brothers, quite literally flashed before her eyes.

" _Come on! Myc said we were going on a picnic, Bee!" A young Sherlock waves frantically at Florence._

" _So you've found a friend, Bee?" An older Sherlock asks Florence from the other side of a cafe table._

" _Bee! Stop!" Mycroft is, rather uncharacteristically, yelling after Florence and running after her with the stamina of a man half his age. "You can't just leave us! You're our sister! Come back! Only you can set this right, Bee! Bee, STOP! PLEASE, BEE! COME BACK!" But soon, Florence swerves dangerously around a car and easily overtakes her brother, who had always had a singular disdain for "legwork."_

 _Florence sits back in her cottage in the north of England and reads the paper over and over. She's just about memorized the numbers by now, but she's still trying to make a decision. It was hard to call Molly again after so long, but calling Mycroft will be even harder…_

 _She gives in and dials._

" _So, he's got a flatmate now?" Florence asks across the well-polished desk to her older brother, whose hair is decidedly beginning to thin. "And he's off drugs?"_

" _Yes. His flatmate is doing, I must say, a very good job in preventing relapses and keeping him grounded. He has a blog too._ The Personal Blog of John H. Watson. _You should go look at it."_

" _Mm. A visit seems in order, then. Jump out of a cake, perhaps?"_

 _Florence is pedaling to the address Mycroft has given her, the key to Sherlock's flat safely hidden in her pocket._

" _And I know exactly who you are." Sherlock's voice has grown deeper than the last time Florence has seen him, she will admit. He springs out of his chair, brings a hand up to the oddball 3D spectacles she's used as a makeshift disguise. Gently, tenderly almost, he pulls them off her face._

 _They are hugging by his fireplace now, Sherlock's poor flatmate just about going into shock._

" _I would never forget you, Bee. Never forget the life we've shared as children," he whispers into her ear and holds her tightly._

 _She buries her head in the crook of his neck and sighs. She is the older one, but nobody would really know that judging by height. Her brother is a head taller than her now._

" _Um...Sherlock?" the flatmate coughs awkwardly._

 _Florence and Sherlock cling to each other for a few more seconds and then pull apart. At the door, a man with silver hair is holding up a camera phone and trying to hold back laughter._

 _Both Florence and Sherlock redden as he slowly puts the phone down._

 _Florence is busily taking gulps out of her water bottle on a bench, her bicycle parked nearby. She looks down for a few seconds, and when she looks back up, a car, black as night, has pulled up to the kerb. The other passenger's door opens and a slender woman slides out, walks to the door facing Florence, and opens it._

" _Sorry about this," she murmurs apologetically._

" _Oh. H'lo, Anthea," Florence greets her with a grin. She and Anthea get along spectacularly. Her grin slides off, however, when she notices her friend's face. "Is it bad?"_

" _We'll discuss it, just get in the car," Anthea tells her grimly. "We'll take care of your bike."_

 _They ride to Mycroft's Diogenes office._

" _So." Florence pauses after looking back from the doorway on her way out an hour later. "Three bombshells in one afternoon. One, Sherlock might die and I'm going to have to make up with him. Two, I might be able to help him die. Except, number three, he won't actually die."_

" _Sounds about it," Mycroft tells her._

 _Sherlock and Florence are sitting across from each other in the dining room of 221B._ Doctor Who _is blaring from the living room and John is watching (or pretending to watch) it._

" _So. You forgive me, then, Bee?"_

" _I can't forgive you for throwing away your talents in the first place," she sighs. "But I can forgive you for what you said to me, because I know now that...that that's all false."_

" _Thank you. I can at least...go...knowing that."_

 _They get up and hug in the middle of the kitchen, and when Florence pulls away from her younger brother, his shoulder is spotted with tears._

Florence was jolted back to the present, watching Sherlock on the rooftop, talking to John.

"Everyone. Get ready, the note is ending," Anthea said over Florence's earpiece, her voice shaking a little.

In front of her, John yelled, "SHERLOCK!" just as Sherlock tossed his phone backwards. He stopped for the tiniest fraction of a second, then pushed his arms out and fell forward.

And just like that, Florence's heart shattered into a million tiny pieces, for John and Lestrade and Mrs. Hudson and everyone who truly believes that he would die. She fiercely bit her lip to suppress herself from screaming.

 _CAPTAIN WILLIAM, DON'T WALK THE PLANK!_ she remembered screaming at him one day as a small child, as he teetered at the end of the board they'd used as a "plank". They'd been captured on an enemy ship and Sherlock had been forced to walk the plank. She'd gone supersonic that day, screaming and yelling at her brother until he ran back to her and took her into the most crushing hug a child could give.

"I won't walk the plank, Bee! Don't cry!" he'd said into her ear. "Please don't cry! I'll be alright! See, I'm right here, Bee! I'm okay!"

In front of her, John began to take a few steps forward, towards Sherlock, towards Bart's. _I'm late!_ Florence muttered a particularly unkind word as Anthea said into her ear, "Bee, go now!"

She hurriedly began to pedal, the familiar motion of her feet mirroring her pounding heart. Her bike was quiet as she rode up behind John.

Her eyes flicked over the army doctor's figure analytically. _All I have to do is trip him up._ With her front wheel, she could just gently trip him up by the lower leg. _I'm sorry, John, but I've got to do this!_

She pedaled forwards and shut her eyes, putting on an extra burst of speed. Her wheel made contact with John and she winced as he fell to the asphalt with a grunt.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry," she whispered over and over under her breath as she rode away and down the street to a boarded-up restaurant. Tears were rolling down her face freely as she thought of her doctor friend, crumpled on the pavement and desperately trying to get to his consulting detective.

It was heartbreaking.

But it was necessary.

 _And that doesn't bloody mean I like it!_

She came to a stop by the awning of the restaurant and quickly swiped the sleeves of the dark jacket Mycroft had given her over her face to dry her tears. She took a deep breath.

"A colony without a queen is surely doomed without further action," she said to the bored-looking woman sitting in the doorway.

"Here's the coat," she replied to the code, handing her a navy-blue coat similar to the one she normally wore. Florence shrugged off the dark jacket she was wearing and slipped on the coat.

"Here's your phone," the woman added, slipping Florence her phone. "And take off the beanie," she added.

"Oh," Florence exclaimed and yanked it off.

"The earpiece will stay in, don't worry," the woman told her. "Now, go!"

Florence nodded a "thank-you" to her and sprinted off down the road. John had gotten up from the ground already and was beginning to stagger around the ambulance station. Surely he'd already caught sight of the not-Sherlock on the ground.

"Buy more time with the Hedgehog, Bee!" Anthea warned. "They're not done with the Beekeeper yet!"

Florence hissed, "For the love of all that is good, I'm going!"

She put on another extra burst of speed and dashed over to John.

"John!" she screamed.

John whirled around. "Florence!" he yelled, still shell-shocked. "What're you doing here?"

"I...I got a text!" she replied frantically. Tears were still running down her face. She held her phone out for John to see, with the text Sherlock had planted in the phone minutes earlier.

 _I'm a fraud. A fake._

 _I will always love you._

 _Goodbye._

 _SH_

"Christ," John muttered. "Oh, Christ. You too."

"He...he contacted you?" Florence asked him.

"He called me, said it was his note!" John replied, panic increasing in his navy-blue eyes. "We need to get to him!"

"They're ready," Anthea said over the earpiece. "You can go."

"Well then, what are we waiting for?!" Florence grabbed John's hand and they flew around the ambulance station, quick as birds, only to stop right in their tracks. A group of people were huddled around a solitary figure lying on the pavement.

And a river of dark red snaked out from them.

"Oh. God. Oh. God." Florence's breath hitched in her throat, even though she knew it was a fake.

It was all pretend.

" _I'm a fraud. A fake."_

Just a magic trick.

" _Goodbye, John."_

The pain in John's tone wasn't, though. Florence could sense the sorrow that lay deeper than words or emotions. It tugged, yanked, and almost broke her heartstrings.

 _But I have to keep strong. For them._

"No," John breathed next to her. He moved forward as if in a trance. "Oh, God. No."

Florence darted away and into the crowd of the Homeless Network, flashing her Bart's ID around. They parted, recognizing her, and her eyes widened.

Her brother lay on the ground, making a good impression of a dead person.

"God. Sherlock, what…" She quickly dropped to her knees by his head, ignoring the crimson liquid soaking her trousers as she did so.

"I'll cover you," Anthea said through the earpiece. "John won't be coming for a few seconds yet."

"Sherlock. William. William, can you hear me? If you can hear me, nod once."

On the ground in front of her, her brother imperceptibly gave her a nod. Relief washed over Florence like a wave. "Squash ball there?"

Sherlock nodded again.

"John's coming," Anthea warned.

"I will see you very, very soon," Florence promised. "I…"

"Sherlock," John groaned behind her. "Oh, you...what have you done?"

He dropped to his knees by his flatmate and took Sherlock's pale, limp wrist, obviously feeling around for a pulse. The Homeless Network tried to ward him off after he dropped Sherlock's wrist like a stone, his face saying everything that needed to be told about the state of his friend.

 _Florence Margaret Holmes, do stop crying, it's all pretend!_

 _But Captain William, it's so real!_

A voice that sounded a lot like Sherlock himself echoed in a corner of Florence's mind, but the tears came despite herself. The Homeless Network did nothing to take her off of her brother as they gently hauled John to his feet and away from his friends.

Florence, still sobbing unashamedly, shifted so that she was right at Sherlock's head. She didn't pay attention to the fact that tears were dripping off of her nose and chin, spotting her brother's scarf with dots filled with a sadness no words could ever convey.

She gently slid both hands underneath Sherlock's curly head and lifted it onto her lap, careful not to disturb the fake wound that had been applied by the Homeless Network. More crimson ended up on her trousers and coat, but she couldn't care less as she rocked back and forth, carefully stroking her brother's childlike curls away from his pale face.

It was more than the real thing than it was an act for John.

"Florence." One of the Homeless Network tugged at her sleeve. "Florence, you'll have to go."

Florence turned her gaze to the woman who had spoken. "I...I don't _want_ to," she whispered petulantly, sadness tinging every word.

"Bee." For a moment, Sherlock stirred on her lap and looked up at her. Automatically, the Homeless Network shifted to cover up Florence and her younger brother. Florence bent her face over her brother's, letting her honey-brown hair fall over his face. "You've got to go, Bee," he whispered and made himself go limp again.

Gently, Florence leaned down and pressed her lips to his head.

"I love you," she whispered.

Slowly, she lowered Sherlock's head back to the pavement and stepped away from her brother as he was hauled onto a stretcher. She walked over to John, sitting on the pavement, as his legs had seemed to give out from underneath him due to the whole shock of the affair.

Words could do nothing for them as the two friends held each other, ignoring the blood that covered both their clothes.

"Is there any way that we can go on, Florence?" John asked her, grief evident in his voice and countenance.

"We must go on, John," she murmured. "For Sherlock. We must remember him for all he did. Sherlock Holmes is not a fake."

 _We must remember..._


	2. Act I: We're Sailing Along Together

**Act One, Scene One  
** **We're Sailing Along Together, You and I**

* * *

 _Sail on, silver girl  
_ _Sail on by  
_ _Your time has come to shine  
_ _All your dreams are on their way  
_ _See how they shine  
_ _Oh, if you need a friend  
_ _I'm sailing right behind  
_ _Like a bridge over troubled water  
_ _I will ease your mind_

-Simon & Garfunkel, "Bridge Over Troubled Water"

* * *

"Why didn't Mummy and Dad let us come with them on their getaway to Majorca, Myc?" Eight-year-old Florence raised herself up on her toes and stretched her fingers up to reach the stair-rail on which her fourteen-year-old brother Mycroft was nonchalantly leaning. "I can speak perfect Spanish," she tacked on with a pout. She knew that she was being extremely petulant, but she didn't care.

"As can I," added her brother William Sherlock, walking into the room with Redbeard the puppy bouncing around his heels.

"And if I may contribute," Mycroft added with a lazy wave of his hand, "I can speak enough Spanish as well. But the root of the matter is that Mum and Dad were more likely aiming for a _getaway and relaxation_ for their wedding anniversary."

"Oh." Florence scrunched up her nose, confused by this. "But they could have celebrated with us, too. Right?"

"And here is the part where I cease to contribute to the conversation," Mycroft sighed. "Interpersonal relationships are not part of my strong sets, unlike you, Florence Margaret."

"Does that make me special, Myc?" Florence asked quietly, jerking her eyes up to her older brother's cool and steady gaze. William was behind her, sitting and softly talking to a protesting Redbeard in his arms.

Mycroft didn't answer for a while. When he did, it was with a sigh. Everything that Mycroft seemed to do or say was with a _sigh_. "Yes, Bee," he replied rather tiredly. "Now go to bed. I'm planning something for tomorrow. William, that means you too."

Florence let go of the stair-rail with a huff. "All right, then," she said to nobody in particular and dashed up the stairs past her older brother, her bare feet pressing into the carpet with every step. From the thumping behind her, she guessed that William was running up the stairs as well.

Florence ran into the room she and William shared and flipped on the light hanging between their beds, in front of the room's sole window. Dots of light sprinkled over the walls where Mycroft had punched holes through the lampshade to make up for stars. Shades of blue made up the rest of the room: Florence hated the color pink with a passion. William flopped into his bed with a huge yawn, his messy dark curls hanging over his eyes.

"Lights off?" he asked her, his seven-year-old eyes widening.

"'Kay," she said. "Three...two...one... _lift off!_ " She slammed down on the light switch and ran pell-mell to her bed, vaulting into it and burying herself underneath the blankets with a giggle. "Ow!" she whispered as her foot hit the astronomy book she'd sneaked into her bed the night before.

Her whisper caught the attention of William from across the room. "Bee!" His tone was urgent. "Are you alright?"

"I'm fine, William!" she replied quickly. "It's just my book. I hit my foot on it."

"M'kay," he said in his seven-year-old lisp. Florence smiled into her pillow. They were so close together in age that they were put in the same form in school. Needless to say, they were almost literally joined at the hip, the two quiet Holmes children of the class. She kept him in line when he got bored (as he often did) and he helped her when she didn't understand something.

Florence wasn't even old enough to remember when her younger brother was born: she was only around ten months old when her family welcomed William Sherlock Scott Holmes into the fold. For all her life, she'd always known a younger presence in the family dynamic, a friend that always wanted to play pirates and build pillow castles at night in the room they shared.

 _Speaking of which…_

"William," she said suddenly, "do you want to make a castle?"

She could hear him sit up abruptly. "Thought you'd never ask, Bee," he giggled and piled all of his pillows and blankets on the floor between their beds, the light of the half-moon slanting through the window and pooling across the floor.

Florence slid onto the floor with her pillows and blankets, and they worked side-by-side, building four soft walls and stretching a thin duvet over the top to suggest a roof. Because they were both smaller children, they could easily sit underneath the duvet without bending over.

"What do you want to be when you're all grown up?" William asked softly, stretched out on his back with his hands clasped behind his head.

"I don't know, really," Florence confessed. "Maybe someone who studies planets and stars and whatnot -"

"Oh, an ast-ro-no-mer?" William sounded out carefully. _It was an unfamiliar word after all._

"Yeah, that," Florence nodded, letting the duvet tickle her head as she sat on the floor, legs crossed comfortably. "Or a doctor. What about you? I mean," she added, "other than a pirate?"

"Come on, Bee," William whined.

"I don't think Mum and Dad - and certainly not Myc - would like you to be one. Plus, it's kind of illegal."

"Fine," William sighed. "Maybe...er…what do you think, Bee?"

"You're really observant, William. I mean, _really_ observant. And you like all those detective stories." An idea burst to life. "Hey!" she exclaimed suddenly.

"What is it?"

"You can be a detective, William!" she said excitedly. "And solve crimes and use your mind and everything. You'd be a great detective. I know it."

"But it's not as good as being a pirate," William said doubtfully.

"Well," Florence reasoned. "If you were a pirate, you'd always be at risk of, what, getting captured by enemy ships and being forced to walk the plank or something like that, or getting caught by the navy and forced to surrender."

"That's exciting, though," he pointed out.

"On the other hand," Florence continued, "if you were a _detective,_ you'd be using your mind to help people and catch bad guys that hurt those people."

William thought about this for a bit.

"And if you were a detective, you'd get paid to use your mind."

"But if I was a pirate," he contradicted, "I could get my own money!"

"By stealing from ships, which is pretty much illegal," Florence countered.

"You should be a _lawyer_! That way, you can argue about things all the time!" he giggled.

Florence giggled too. "No, silly, I can't be a lawyer. I'll have to always sit in courtrooms listening and arguing for _forever,_ and you know I can't sit still!"

Conversation turned into different waters, and eventually, both siblings were beginning to suppress monumental yawns.

"Let's just kip in here...I don't feel like hauling all of our things back up," William suggested lazily.

And so they did, brother and sister sleeping soundly back-to-back, lending each other support through the night.

And that is how one older brother found his younger charges in the morning.

* * *

Florence blinked open her eyes. Instead of moonlight filtering through the duvet, warm daylight accosted her sense of sight, causing her to shut her eyes again and bury her head in a pillow wall.

"Oi," she heard her older brother saying from above, and the duvet was yanked off of the pillow castle. "I've planned something for this morning, you two."

Florence groaned lazily and tried to bury her head in another pillow.

"Whassamatter?" yawned William in one breath.

"I've planned something," Mycroft repeated obscurely. "But first, breakfast. I don't need to eat, but you two do."

Florence took her head out of the pillow. _I am kind of hungry…_

"Ah, the princess awakes," Mycroft said.

"I'm _not_ a princess!" Florence whined, lazily swatting at her older brother's pant leg in annoyance. "That's a _really stupid_ stereotype!" She sat up and walked past him slowly, yawning all the way.

"Get dressed, we're going out," was Mycroft's reply, tinged with a hint of amusement at her puerile tone as he strolled down the stairs.

"Out?" William sat up abruptly, his hair a complete mess.

"Mm," Florence hummed in assent as she grabbed some clothes from her drawers and ran to the bathroom to change.

When she got back to her room, freshened up and feeling more awake than she had been earlier, William was fixing his bed grudgingly, yawning every few seconds. A pile of pillows and blankets sat on top of Florence's bed, and she sighed and went to straighten it all out.

Eventually, both siblings slid down the stair-rail to the first floor and ran into the kitchen.

"Myc, can you grab the bread? I can't reach it," called William, the tips of his fingers barely reaching the shelf where the loaf sat, just out of reach for the poor boy.

Mycroft strode over and easily plucked the bread off the cupboard and handed it to Florence, who ran to the toaster and plonked the slices into it. William had by now taken the butter from the refrigerator and the jam from a shelf that he could actually reach.

The two young Holmes wolfed down their breakfast, ready and excited for whatever adventure Mycroft had planned for them.

"Where are we going, Mycroft?" asked William, wiping crumbs off his little chin.

"You'll see very soon, if you only have _patience_ , " answered Mycroft exasperatedly. "However, I can tell you that it will require going outside and walking. Florence, bring your bicycle, you may ride it on the way to our special location. William, bring Redbeard and his leash; you can walk him-the dog needs the exercise."

William muttered something about how Mycroft was a bigger pig than Redbeard would ever be, but quickly stopped after a poke in the arm by Florence.

And that is how, on that morning, all three siblings and a puppy found themselves walking (or in Florence's case, biking) along a path to wherever Mycroft was planning to take them.

While Florence had no idea as to _where_ exactly her brother was taking them, she hadn't failed to notice the basket that Mycroft was carrying, the blanket that was tied securely to her handlebars, the scroll of paper that was stuck hurriedly into William's free hand, or the dog food and water that Mycroft had shoved into William's knapsack before they left their house. In fact, if she thought that Myc had time for such 'silly things' as he called them, she believed that they were going to have a picnic.

The thoughts left her mind as she pedaled at a steady rate, keeping pace with her brothers. The breeze whipped wisps of hair from her plait, ruffled through William's curls, making them even messier than before, if that was possible, and flew through Redbeard's fur and nose, making the puppy whimper and sneeze suddenly.

"Turn here, Florence," called Mycroft, steering William towards a path on their left. Florence moved the bars and turned… right into a little clearing.

"What're we doing here, Myc?" asked little William, who took in his surroundings with wide, clear eyes. Redbeard ran amuck, desperately trying to escape the leash.

"If you had been more observant, William, then you would have deduced that we are going to have a picnic of sorts."

 _HA! So I was right,_ thought Florence.

"Can we go and explore?" she asked her elder brother.

"Yeah, can me and Bee play pirates?" William continued eagerly.

"First off; yes, you may 'play', just keep within my sight; and second, William, it's 'Bee and I', not 'me and Bee'. If you don't want to appear _stupid_ and complete _idiots_ like the others in your year, barring Florence of course, then I highly suggest that you use proper grammar."

William looked offended for the tiniest of seconds, but then shrugged it off and exchanged Redbeard's leash for Florence's hand.

"C'mon, First Mate Florence! Let's explore this mysterious land and conquer the enemies!" he shouted excitedly.

"Aye, aye, Captain William!" she responded with a salute and a smile.

The two youngsters ran near the edge of the woods and did some exploring. The clearing was not that large and touched the border of a forest. There was also a little creek, but above all, it was isolated, quiet, green, and clean. _Trust Mycroft to find the perfect place for a picnic,_ thought Florence with a huge grin. Together, the siblings pointed out a cluster of trees that was their ship and fortress, another one that was the enemies', decided that the creek was the ocean, found an old, abandoned board by the creek which would be the perfect plank, and agreed that certain bushes could serve their purpose as traps laid out by the enemy.

Their exploration was ruined by Mycroft, who was apparently calling for them to eat. Florence and William ran to the middle of the clearing and jumped down on the blanket, where Mycroft and Redbeard were already sitting. Mycroft pulled out two sandwiches from the little basket: one with peanut butter, bananas, and honey, which was Florence's favorite combination, and another with roast beef for William. There was also two canteens of juice. The two began to eat their respective sandwiches, until William suddenly stopped mid-bite and put his down onto the blanket with a definite _thud_.

"Being picky, again, William?" asked Mycroft rather snarkily, in Florence's opinion.

"No," the younger brother replied, seemingly unperturbed by this insult. "Where's _your_ food, Myc?"

Florence, too, stopped eating her sandwich as she looked and realized that Mycroft didn't have a sandwich of his own.

"Yeah, where's your food, Mycroft? Don't you need something to eat? You didn't eat breakfast this morning, and if I remember correctly, you didn't eat much at dinner last night. You must be absolutely famished," she said, recalling his words earlier. _I don't need to eat, but you two do._

"If you're so good at following rules, Mycroft, then you'd be blatantly disobeying Mummy. She always says that you can't _ever_ miss a meal," William added, the corners of his mouth turning down at this clear show of disobedience from their faultless sibling.

Mycroft opened his mouth and closed it again, obviously confused at the amount of concern shown by his siblings.

Florence, meanwhile, was trying to calculate numbers mentally. _We have two sandwiches, but three of us. What does that mean?_

She stood up from the blanket, having finished the math in her head. "Listen up, Myc. We have a couple of sandwiches, but there's three of us. Two divided by three isn't perfect, it's an infinite decimal- but it's roughly one-half. Therefore, each person should get a half. We can give the last slice to Redbeard."

"That's a great idea, Bee!" William exclaimed. Florence and William sat next to each other and carefully divided their sandwiches into two halves, making sure to do it correctly; after all, the perfect brother who planned the perfect picnic in the perfect location deserved a perfect half of sandwich.

All the while, Mycroft looked at his younger siblings and smiled a little, quite touched that they had even considered doing this for _him_.

* * *

After their meals had been taken, captain and first mate circled the glade multiple times, back to back, sharp-eyed, energized, and on the lookout for any intruders upon the area that they had claimed as their land. First Mate Florence found swords for her and her captain (which, in reality, were two sticks that were picked off of the ground) as they prowled the area. They took out the map that Mycroft had made for them earlier and hunted for the treasure that had to be upon the land.

"Bee!" Captain William whispered, pointing at a little spot on the map. "I do believe…"

He didn't finish his sentence as he stepped right onto a bush.

"Oh, no," Florence gasped, hands over her mouth. "Captain, you've walked directly into a trap!" She pointed downwards with a trembling finger. "And there…"

Captain William followed her gaze. "Florence… that's the plank." He began to walk slowly towards the small board which they had previously designated as the plank, throwing the map over and behind his shoulder.

Florence shook her head and yanked at her braid in frustration. "No, you can't do that! You can't abandon me! Don't you always say that a good captain would _never_ leave his first mate behind?"

William looked back towards his shaking first mate. "Sometimes, captains have to make the right choice for the rest of their crew. And in this case, the right choice is for me to die so that our enemies won't get to _you_. See, Florence, I'm doing this so that you'll be protected! I'm gonna sacrifice myself because otherwise, we'll _both_ be hurt! I know you wouldn't want that to happen. Okay? It's all right," he said as he turned, facing the sea with a straight back, arms spread out like he was a bird that was about to fly towards the ocean. He took one step, two, and almost a third one until Florence screamed at the top of her lungs.

" _ **CAPTAIN WILLIAM, DON'T WALK THE PLANK!"**_ she yelled with every ounce of her being, a tear rolling down her face, waving her hands frantically in a desperate attempt to rescue the captain.

William then took a third step _\- backwards_ \- and turned and ran towards his sister.

"I won't walk the plank, Bee! Don't cry!" he said, fiercely hugging her. "Please don't cry! I'll be alright! See, I'm right here, Bee! I'm okay!" Florence wrapped her arms around her brother, holding him close, enormously relieved that he had chosen not to fall into the sea.

"Florence Margaret Holmes, do stop crying, it's all pretend!" William whispered into her shoulder in an attempt to comfort her.

"But Captain William, it's so real!" she responded quietly, wiping a little tear from the corner of her eye.

As the two separated, Florence made a promise to herself.

 _I will never,_ ever _let William walk the plank and into deep, troubled waters; no matter the age or circumstance, because a good first mate_ always _keeps her captain safe._

* * *

 _Special thanks to LittleReaderOfBooks for co-writing this chapter._


	3. Act I: A Motorbike and a New Friend

**Act One, Scene Two  
** **A Motorbike and a Friend**

* * *

' _Round my hometown  
_ _Memories are fresh  
_ ' _Round my hometown  
_ _Ooh, the people I've met  
_ _Are the wonders of my world_

-Adele, "Hometown Glory"

* * *

"I can't keep doing this for you anymore, _William_!"

"I'm going by Sherlock now, _Florence Margaret_!"

Brother and sister were bickering furiously as the fog hung outside the windows of the flat they shared. It was a frigid Sunday, and Florence was getting ready to head to her part-time job as a librarian at the local library...but not before fiercely arguing with her younger brother about -

" _Laundry,_ Sherlock! Why can't you do the _laundry?!_ You've got to start doing your laundry now. Mummy said you had to!" Her 'lawyer' skills abandoned, she desperately played the 'Mummy' card as she quickly scooped her hair up in a chignon. "William Sherlock Scott Holmes, _please_ do your laundry for once!" she whispered frantically, looking for some pins to secure her hair before she headed off to work.

She practically ran to the door, shoving her flats on her feet, glasses on her face, and grabbing her pack off of the coffee table in one swift movement. "Goodbye, Sherlock. _Please_ do your laundry!" she called out exasperatedly and ran out of the one-story guest house the siblings had rented out because of its proximity to the university they attended, pausing only to grab her helmet off the dining table. She only ever wore it when she was biking on the main road ( _which probably doesn't set a good example,_ she reckoned). She crunched through the autumn leaves carpeting the ground as she walked towards the motorbike that their landlady, Mrs. Coqeau, had let her borrow. The small yet powerful machine had formerly belonged to Mrs. Coqeau's son Ellis, who had, according to the landlady, "gone and married some woman he met when he was going for a communications major."

Florence wheeled the motorbike out of the side gate. Pausing by the side of the main road, she buckled her helmet on and mounted her motorbike, revving it up and pushing out onto the road.

Letting the cool air frisk across her face as she expertly swerved around parked cars, Florence let all her worries and troubles float away with the wind. With a little smile and a nod to a few pedestrians, she hung a difficult right turn at an intersection and sighted the library a few hundred meters off. Parking, she swung a leg over the motorbike and shook her head free of the helmet. Adjusting her bag strap, she hurried into the library and to the lockers at the back.

Unlocking locker 4, Florence dumped her bag onto the shelf and hung up her helmet, pausing a moment to stare around at the locker she had held for the past two years. She was in her second year of uni, and she had held the position of intern librarian since she had entered university to take the pre-med courses. Florence had long given up the dream of becoming a pirate and had instead turned to the medical field, electing to be a pediatrician in future. Pictures of herself and her brothers covered the door of the locker, ranging from childhood to present-day. Sighing, Florence checked herself in the locker's small mirror, redoing her hair and applying a layer of Chapstick. Slamming the door and locking it, she walked out to her desk and sat on her chair, spinning around in it childishly a few times before pulling herself towards the edge of the desk and beginning to take down lists of books to put on hold.

A half-hour later, she got up with her lists and began to walk up and down each aisle with a cart to take out the books she needed. Her lists were long: much of the books put on hold were for the elderly people who lived in the area and couldn't come to find the books they needed.

As she took out _Don Quixote,_ a soft _ding_ sounded from the direction of her desk. Florence took out her pencil and marked where she had left off on her list. Satisfied, she tucked the list into the cart and wheeled it over to her desk. Sure enough, a student was standing at the desk. _Probably checking out a book,_ Florence reasoned. Not bothering to look who it was, she parked the cart and sat back into her desk.

"Sorry for the wait. How may I help you?" She asked quickly, pulling herself up to the edge of the desk.

"Bee, you have not even condescended to say good morning," a familiar voice said.

Florence looked up in surprise. "Oh! I didn't expect you to be here, Sherlock," she exclaimed. "What are you doing here?"

"Just saying hello, and that you should meet me for lunch at Odds and Ends Coffee Shop after your shift ends at precisely 12:45, which is two hours and forty-five minutes from now," her younger brother said smoothly, sliding a book on beekeeping over the counter. Florence quickly checked it out and handed it to him.

"I'll meet you there," she replied. "Thanks." _Something for me to look forward to._

"Thank _you,_ " her brother tipped a small wink at her and left.

"Wow," a voice commented from another desk as the library door swung shut.

Florence looked around. Her co-worker (and also a part-timer) Marie was staring at her from her desk. _She must have come in earlier._

"Where did you meet...well, _him?_ " Marie asked in awe.

Florence stifled a laugh as she realized that Marie had never known that Sherlock was her younger brother. _I can have a little bit of fun, can't I? After all, she's my friend._

Florence stared seriously into Marie's hazel gaze through her oblong spectacles, the vision supplement allowing her to see every freckle on her friend's face. "It was in a hospital, I can remember," she started very solemnly.

"Well, that's quite all right," Marie said. "Everyone meets _theirs_ in odd places. But do go on."

Florence held back in a giggle and kept her solemn countenance in check. Mycroft, the King of Sagacity, would be proud of his little sister.

"I was with my father and older brother. We were visiting Mum, I remember. She'd just had my little brother. I'm the middle child, you see," she expounded, temporarily breaking off from the storyline. _Well, I wasn't old enough to really remember first meeting him, but I can imagine._

Marie's eyebrow creased, and Florence knew that she was slightly confused at this statement. After all, Mummy Holmes was definitely much older now for Florence to be meeting her baby brother at the age Florence was currently at. _All part of the game. Sherlock, you'd really like this._

"Well," she said after a few moments, "then you must have been with _him_ for a long while."

 _Just what I need her to say!_ "Oh, yes," she sighed, as if reminiscing on times gone by. "I certainly have."

"Oh, how lovely!" Marie gushed loudly, clapping her hands. "Oh. Library. Oops," she whispered, chagrined. "But you still haven't told me how you met...oh, what's his name?"

"Sherlock," Florence said, deliberately placing a hand over her heart and melting a bit. _This is fun!_

"Not a common name, huh?" Marie smirked. "But still, cute. You still haven't told me how you met Sherlock!"

Florence saw with the eye of a seasoned storyteller (after all, she did love writing pirate stories about herself and Sherlock as a child) that she had built up the story to its climax. She was ready for the big reveal, the "ta-da" moment of the whole story.

"So, my father, brother, and I rode the lift to Mum's room and we walked in. Luckily, Mum was sitting up and she was holding our new little brother." _Now we are wading into the marsh of muddled guesswork. Even more so than before._ "She was smiling so happily that it made _everyone_ happy."

Marie was looking a bit impatient, but she wisely kept her mouth shut and let the storyteller finish her work. Florence was giggling like a small child inside as she laid out the framework of her tale.

"And she said, 'Here's your new little brother, William!' Oh, he had the most amazing blue eyes. Later on, he developed central heterochromia, and oh, they're the most wonderful eyes I've seen, to be honest. I'd be an opthamologist just to study my little brother's eyes." Florence couldn't help it, she smiled sunnily and hugged her knees to her chest, feeling like a warm glow of sunshine was dispelling the clouds outside and radiating out from her very being. "As for me, my eyes pretty much just darkened slightly to a grayish blue and stayed that way. They're somewhat like my older brother's, except his are just a tad darker. I should really show you a picture one day. Which is honestly a bit scary when he's angry to be honest, but―"

Marie looked even more impatient as she cut in. "But _Sherlock,_ Florence, what about Sherlock?"

"Getting there!" Florence allowed herself a laugh. "Patience, Marie! Anyway, later on I checked my new brother's birth certificate and there it was: his full name. It's a really long one, so be prepared." Normally she wouldn't have divulged a fact like this, but she trusted Marie enough not to tell: she'd probably forget, anyway.

"Anyway, so I took a peek at my brother's birth certificate and there it was, his name in full: _William_ Sherlock _Scott Holmes!_ "

It took a bit for the meaning of this to sink in, but when it did, Marie looked a little chagrined. "Oh, so he's your _brother!_ " She cried. "I'm sorry, I thought he was your...well, you know!"

Florence threw her head back and laughed. "That's all right, Marie, I've had to put up with that for _years_!"

Marie eventually began to giggle sheepishly too. "Wow, I'm sorry about that." As the giggles subsided, she began to ask some questions. "You two seem really close in age, yes?"

"Yes," Florence confessed. "I made some bits of the story up. You see, I wasn't even old enough to remember him being born! I was only ten months old at the time."

The pair flew into a flurry of giggles again. "But what I said about the central heterochromia and the older brother were true," Florence choked out between giggles.

Eventually, Florence and Marie got back to work, and by the end of their shift had accomplished much on their list of tasks. Florence had set aside all the books that needed to be held, and Marie had finished checking in books that had been returned.

"Goodbye, Marie," Florence called out, mounting her motorbike at precisely 12:45. A slight drizzle was beginning to fall, and Florence put up her jacket hood before sliding on her helmet. "I'm off to meet my brother for lunch."

"Say hello to him for me," Marie called cheekily, tipping a massive wink at Florence over their joke.

"Oi, you," Florence teased back, "You've got your boyfriend already, I'm fine with just my brother to keep me company."

"Bye!" Marie called as Florence rode out into the main road.

The drizzle had turned to pattering drops of rain as Florence stopped at a corner. Looking to her left, she noticed a single pedestrian, desperately trying to seek cover underneath a broken umbrella. Florence furrowed her eyebrows and squinted, trying to make out who it was.

 _Is that who I think it is?_ She thought momentarily, before the woman looked up and noticed her. It was Molly Hooper, one of Florence's study acquaintances. She was studying to be a pathologist, and the two had gotten to know each other slightly well. However, they weren't really close.

"Molly," Florence called out. The slim, petite student tucked a short, reddish-brown strand of hair and looked up at her.

"Oh, it's you, Florence," she said, relief evident in her warm brown eyes. "How are you doing?"

Florence pulled over closer to the kerb, hauling her bike onto the pavement so that they could properly chat. "Fine, thanks. Just meeting my brother for lunch."

"Oh, I see," Molly said, nodding.

"Do you need a ride?" Florence asked in concern. "It looks like you've been walking in this rain for a while, and your umbrella's seen better days."

Molly took a look at the collapsed umbrella and smiled ruefully. "I can see that. Yeah, I need a ride, if that's not a problem with you?"

"Oh no, not a problem," Florence shook her head. "My brother can wait. Where do you need to go?"

"Just my flat. I'm sharing with someone."

Molly gave Florence the address and climbed onto the motorbike behind Florence, tossing the forlorn umbrella into a bin.

Florence closed her eyes. She wasn't as good with a Mind Palace as her brothers were, but she tried. Upon their arrival at university, Florence had managed to memorize a map of the surrounding area after twelve straight hours and a multitude of Jammie Dodgers. Carefully, she traced a route to the destination (a modest townhouse) and started out.

Five minutes later, Florence dropped off her new friend at her flat. They had chatted happily at various signal lights and had found that they shared many interests and opinions about various things in the healthcare region, even though they were training for professions in different areas. She bid good-bye to Molly and made her way to the coffee shop where, she hoped, her brother would be waiting. Hopefully not too dismayed at her tardiness.

She pulled up outside Odds and Ends and parked the motorbike. Shaking her head out of the helmet, she walked into the coffee shop, the door's bell jingling at her arrival.

Odds and Ends was one of the only coffee shops in the area that did table service, and the host noticed her and said, "How many in your party?"

"Actually," Florence cleared her throat, tucking her helmet under her arm, "actually, I'm with my brother. Name's Sherlock Holmes?"

"Right in the back, ma'am," the host signaled courteously.

"Thanks," Florence replied. Her shoes, wet from the rain, squeaked a little as she crossed the restaurant floor, and she desperately hoped that nobody would slip in the tracks she'd made. Finding the booth signaled by the host, Florence slid into the cozy booth across from her brother, who had ordered coffee and soup. "Sorry I'm late," she told him, and spilled out an explanation.

"So, I gather that you've found a new friend?" He asked after she had finished, taking a sip of his coffee.

"Yes, she's quite nice," responded Florence. "Now, dear brother, about the laundry…"

* * *

 _ **A/N:**_ _I was recently asked a question about the timeline for this. I'll take it apart like this. (Remember, my timeline for this may not be the same as yours.)_

 _Starting with the given information:_

 _Mycroft and Sherlock are seven years apart in age._

 _In this chapter, we see that OC is around ten months older than Sherlock._

 _From what I saw on Tumblr, Sherlock is most likely around 33 when he and John first meet, which would make Mycroft 40 in_ A Study in Pink. _Knowing this, OC would also be 33._

 _Sherlock and John first met, according to BBC canon, in 2010. (It shows this at the beginning of_ Abominable Bride _(the Christmas Special). This would make Sherlock's DOB 6 January 1977, and OC's DOB somewhere in 1976. This would also make Mycroft's DOB somewhere in 1970._

 _In the prologue, OC is indeed described as being "one year older" than Sherlock. However, this is rounding on my part. It's a little messy to see "older by ten months" so, being the lazy mathematician that I am, I decided to round. Last chapter, OC is described as being eight years old and Sherlock as seven. THIS IS A MISTAKE, AND I WILL FIX IT. Because of the ten-month gap, OC would have been only ten months old when Sherlock was born, NOT the full year._ ** _(EDIT 10 March 2016: The error is resolved.)_**

 _For this chapter, we can assume that both OC and Sherlock are around the same age, which in this case is about 21 or so. They're both in uni._

 _To the person who PM'd me about this, I hope this clears up any questions you have._

 _Always, Rielle_

 _ **PS: THIS IS FOR YOU. Yes, you. I know you're reading this. So, please, please drop me a line? The review box is right down there, if you'll be needing it. I'd greatly appreciate it.**_


	4. Act I: No More

_For sensitive readers: Mentions of drug abuse, and some profanity. You have been warned._

* * *

 **Act One, Scene Three  
** **No More**

* * *

 _Well I woke up today  
_ _And you're on the other side  
_ _Our time will never come again  
_ _But if you can still dream  
_ _Close your eyes it will seem  
_ _That you can see me now and then_

-Performed by Neil Hannon, written by Murray Gold, "Song for Ten"

* * *

Florence shakily lowered her head into her hands, letting her fingers pick at the knot of hair neatly tied up on her head, eventually undoing it and letting her wavy golden-brown hair cascade over her shoulders, slightly kinked in areas from its time wrapped up in a bun. As she cradled her head in her hands in the solitude of her flat, knowing full well that she was acting exactly like her older brother, she forced herself to face the facts.

 _My younger brother is a drug addict._

Images of Sherlock's childhood flew through her mind. A small curly-haired boy, napping with his head on her shoulder. The same child playing with Redbeard. His primary school picture, front teeth yet to grow in, his eyes beginning to turn to the central-heterochromatic shade it was at present.

First mate begging captain not to walk off the plank, not to leave her alone, on a picnic in a glade so long ago. Vowing to herself that she would never let him walk off into troubled waters alone.

Herself and that little boy, running happily through life without a single care in the world.

 _Where did we go wrong?_

She looked at the slip of paper handed to her by her older brother surreptitiously during her shift at the library, holding a single sentence and an address.

 _Sherlock has overdosed._

 _17 First Street (it's an abandoned flat)_

Florence was days away from graduating from university and was looking forward to becoming a pediatrician (even at the relatively young age of 28) but she still went to her shifts at the library. She'd been noticing that Sherlock had come home to their shared flat later and later every night, eventually ceasing to turn up for days on end. Florence had taken his excuse of "staying with study partner" at face value: after all, her brother was a graduate chemist.

 _How could I have been so blind?!_

Increasingly worried about her younger brother, Florence had reached out to her older brother and asked him to keep tabs on their younger sibling while Florence dutifully studied, maintaining a position at the top of the class. The note passed to her only hours earlier had made her whole world come crashing down. Florence had quit her final shift at the library early, ignoring Marie's attempts to ask her to go to a celebratory lunch by stammering something about a family emergency.

"Why?" Her whisper echoed out into the nearly empty flat: she had packed all of their things away and given the motorbike back to Mrs. Coqeau in favor of the bicycle that her family had given her as a graduation present.

"My brother could have _told_ me what was wrong. Was he bored? Was he pressured? I _don't...effing...know_!" Florence's voice took on a tinge of strangled derision. "We do _everything_ together. Everything! It's always been just him and me! I thought he could trust me!" She began to feel betrayal and hurt cut into her; piercing, ice-cold shrads embedding themselves deep into her heart.

As her voice echoed into every corner of the flat, she waited for some reply, some... _divine sign_ or whatever that would tell her what to do next.

Nobody replied.

"First sign of madness, talking to yourself," she muttered bitterly. "Sod that."

In anger, she stood up and kicked the coffee table she had been using for her elbow-rest. The tip of her shoe nicked the table-leg, and a chunk of wood had splintered off Mrs. Coqeau's coffee table. Strangely, Florence only felt a slight twinge of regret, soon chased away as she furiously kicked the table again with a yell.

Her sudden rush of fury-driven adrenaline drained away as fast as it had come, and Florence collapsed back onto the floor.

 _I'd better go before I cause any more damage._

Hauling herself to her feet, she grabbed her bag off the floor and headed out of the darkened room.

She rushed over to her bicycle and pedaled fast to the abandoned flat, letting the wind whip at her face as she swerved around cars in breakneck speed. _If I don't get to him soon, who knows what he'll do to himself next?_ She thought in a panic.

Soon, she pulled up outside the flat, in front of which her older brother Mycroft was standing, posture as exact as usual, every inch of his government-worker persona polished and neat. To add to his list of various eccentricities, her brother had began to carry a cane-handle umbrella with him everywhere, which, in Florence's opinion, made Mycroft look like a doddery old man from the Victorian Era. Florence dismounted her bicycle and hauled it up over the kerb and onto the pavement. Her brother looked up at her.

"You came." It was not a question, it was merely a statement. _No words of greeting or affection for your little sister, Mr. Government? You seem to have truly embraced the "sentiment is a chemical defect" maxim._

"Yes. There is no way that I can make myself stay away," she replied smoothly. For the first time, she realized that her hair had been tousled during her brief ride, but she cared little about her hair after a few seconds of realization.

"He is inside," Mycroft whispered, his voice betraying a hint of despair. The mask of the stalwart British government slipped from his face to reveal the vulnerable, desperate older brother. Florence swallowed her bitterness and gave him a tight hug. Luckily, he did not stiffen. Rather, he let himself melt into the comfort of his sister as they grieved over the choice that their younger brother had made.

Florence pursed her lips and pulled away, giving her brother a dignified nod.

"Where's the list?" She asked softly.

Mycroft pressed a folded piece of paper into her hand. Florence read it over quickly.

 _For fuck's sake, Sherlock, what have you done?!_

Florence looked up from the paper in a panic.

"This could kill him!" She shoved the paper back at her brother in disgust. "And he TOOK all of it!"

Mycroft sighed heavily and stared down at his well-polished shoes. Florence shook her head heavily and she mustered up her courage and entered the abandoned flat, heart pounding at what she might see inside.

Being trained as a medical professional, she'd learned about what the effects of drug abuse looked like, and her imagination colored in the picture for her as she visualised what might have happened to the little brother she always played with and confided in.

She didn't expect her little brother calmly sitting at a card table, disheveled, in need of a shave and a wash and dressed in loose baggy clothes. The only evidence of his overdose were his eyes...slightly glassy, his central heterochromia lending a rather eerie effect to them.

 _Slow approach._

 _Don't be intimidating._

 _Calm yourself._

 _Low voice._

The professional in Florence calmed herself. She'd been educated on dealing with people with mental disorders, history of drug abuse, and so many other things.

"Hullo," she said quietly, slowly approaching her younger brother. Her heart ached. _I should never have to approach my own sibling like this._

Sherlock's head snapped toward her sharply, and she halted, a meter from the flimsy card table, ready to run if she needed to. His eyes cleared in recognition. "You."

"Me," Florence agreed, her voice threatening to crack from grief. "May I sit?" She gestured to the other chair parked in front of the table.

"Suppose so," her brother replied jauntily. _So the drugs he took do not particularly affect the workings of his mind…but they're too dangerous for his body._ Florence carefully sat on the crooked chair and set her bag on the floor, desperately trying to calm her racing heart.

"So." She calmly folded her hands on the card table. Across the table, Sherlock mirrored the gesture. She decided to take a forceful stance. "The drugs you've taken obviously don't affect your mind processes." She kept her voice neutral. "So, you know why I'm here, and what I'm about to ask." She improvised on the spot, desperately hoping that he really did know why she was there.

"You're wondering why I do this, aren't you." It wasn't a question, it was only an observation. But it stabbed Florence right in the heart. He was entirely correct. "It's for the excitement of it, the thrill. Can't you _see?_ Nobody sees."

"Yes." Florence lied through her teeth.

"You're lying," he stabbed back, but continued. "It's boring when you've only got your mind for company."

A lump of emotion grew in Florence's throat. Indeed, she had been spending more and more days at the library studying. _I could have prevented this!_ Her mind wailed in agony.

The other part of her mind, however, whispered, _He doesn't know what he's saying. He's high._

"I did it because I needed excitement. I needed that thrill. Otherwise my mind will quite literally tear itself apart."

Silence fell for a few moments.

"Sherlock." Florence broke the silence. "Do you realize the internal harm these drugs cause you? Your bodily functions will be affected by these, you could get landed somewhere that Mycroft and I don't want you to be."

"Mycroft?" Sherlock snorted in derision. "He doesn't care."

Florence was taken aback. "Of course he does, Sherlock. He's the one who told me you were holed up here, a victim of your own making," she snapped. Slowly, she tried to calm herself again.

"I came because I care about you and I hate seeing you like this." She tried not to cry.

 _I can't do this._

 _I can't even think about doing this._

She continued talking in a slightly choked voice. "Why else would I have come here, Sherlock? Why would Mycroft have alerted me that you were here if he didn't care? No matter what you may think of us, we're your siblings. We have and always will care about you. We've been there since the beginning, and we'll be there at the end. I know that this isn't the best that you can be, Sherlock, and I'm here to make sure that you don't sink into further waters," she added, gesturing around herself.

Her brother frowned a little bit. "What are you trying to imply, _Florence Margaret_?" he asked, slightly vehemently.

She took a deep breath and willed herself to develop the emotional composure that would be needed to tell this particular story.

"Do you remember, Sherlock, when we went on that picnic with Mycroft when Mummy and Dad were on their vacation to Majorca?" Without waiting for a reply, she rushed on, fearful that tears would fall if she stopped for a little bit. "Remember when we played pirates? And what about when you got captured, and were about to walk the plank? Remember how I screamed at you to _not jump_ and to stay with me? Don't you remember?"

He made no assertive motion.

"I care about you deeply. I don't want you to hurt yourself like this. I really don't. You're my brother." She took another breath. "And I'll never let you walk the plank. Ever. I promised myself this, and in a way I promised you, too. I promised that I would always protect you from walking the plank, into those troubled waters. Always. Wherever you are, whenever it will be. Always."

Finishing this speech, she sat back and let the tears fall.

"Hmph. I never cared," Sherlock flung across the table.

 _What._

 _What._

 _WHAT did he just say._

 _What did he JUST say._

 _ **WHAT DID HE JUST SAY?!**_

 _NO!_

"I'm sorry?" she asked, trying to make her voice strong.

 _But how can one be strong when your foundation is crumbling in front of your eyes? How do you do this when everything you believed or had hope in is swept away from beneath your feet, and you fall?_

"You heard me," Sherlock said, quite calmly, letting poison and venom seep through and inhibit every syllable that was uttered from the damned lips. "I. Never. Cared. Never gave one bloody shit."

"For...oh, for God's sake!" she cried. "You can't mean that!" she screamed wildly, and words began to tumble over and over and over and over and over and there was no tangible pattern thatshecouldfindeverythingwasturningupsidedownandallaroundandwhathejustsaidandnohe'sjust _William Sherlock brother Scott Holmes brother captain William chemistry drugs overdose Sherlock no brother not caring heartless brother! William pirates fun together happy university overdose not caringbrothersherlockwilliamscottholmesbrotherlovetogetherhappy alwaystogetherneverapartNOTCARINGHEARTLESSOVERDOSEDRUGSOVERDOSE_

 _ **CHOICESTOGETHERBROTHERNOCANNOTHAPPENNOTCARING!SHERLOCK!**_

 _ **NOT CARING.**_

 _ **CARING IS NOT AN ADVANTAGE.**_

The last five words became brighter and clearer in her mind, all the other jumbles of letters disappearing as she saw her brother, truly taking the maxim to whatever was left of his soul.

"You know what?" Her voice was ragged now, her eyes streaming tears like a river. "Sod this." _He doesn't care anymore._

 **I** _DON'T CARE ANYMORE!_

"Sod...ALL OF THIS!" She screamed. In the distance, she thought heard a door open. "Eat your own shit if you want to!" she yelled at the immobile man in front of her. "Fuck all of this. Sod this, sod everything, sod your bloody overdose, because _I'm Sherlock fucking Holmes and I can do anything I want without getting hurt!_ SOD ALL OF THIS!" she roared, pouring out every bit of emotion into her words, her voice becoming raw and ragged at the edges.

 _Just like my heart._

She took the edge of the flimsy card table with her hands and upended it, flipping it over with inhuman strength until it crashed to the wall in a heap and slid to the floor. She did the same with her chair, throwing it across the room forcefully. Finally, all her adrenaline drained away and the strength went with it. She took one last look at the man sitting smugly in the chair, legs crossed.

 _Brother mine, you are no more._

"When you're dying, Sherlock, in some alleyway hell-knows-where. When you've truly become a victim of your own choices: the choices that could have been prevented by you being _better_. Think of me. _Think of me, and the opportunities that you missed._ I can't clean up your messes, _William._ I can't pull you out of the ocean of trouble that you've jumped, swam, and drowned yourself into." she spat angrily.

"Goodbye."

Tears flowing freely, she grabbed her things and barged out of the room.

 _Where will I go?_

 _Anywhere but here!_

 _North of England?_

 _ANYWHEREBUTHERE!_

She ran down the hallway past a very shocked Mycroft. "Where are you going?" He asked with surprise evident in his voice.

"Anywhere but here," she snarled furiously and pushed past him, shoving on her helmet.

 _Back to Mrs. Coqeau's place. Separate your things from his. Bully Mycroft into paying for moving fees. North of England._

The plan fell into place like pieces of a puzzle as Florence mounted her bicycle. "Bee! Stop!" Mycroft was, rather uncharacteristically, yelling after Florence and running after her with the stamina of a man half his age.

Florence ignored him and pedaled on and on and on and on. She couldn't face Mycroft.

"You can't just leave us! You're our sister! Come back! Only you can set this right, Bee! Bee, STOP! PLEASE, BEE! COME BACK!" But soon, Florence swerved dangerously around a car and easily overtook her brother, who had always had a singular disdain for "legwork."

 _I have to do this._

 _I can't stay._

 _I'm sorry._

 _Goodbye._


	5. Intermission: Many Happy Returns, Bee

**Intermission  
** **Many Happy Returns, Florence**

* * *

 _Yesterday  
_ _All my troubles seemed so far away  
_ _Now it looks as though they're here to stay  
_ _Oh, I believe in yesterday…  
_ _Why she had to go  
_ _I don't know  
_ _She wouldn't say.  
_ _I said something wrong, now I long for yesterday._

-The Beatles, "Yesterday"

* * *

14 March.

It is Florence's birthday, the fifth one she has had without the company of her brothers. And she is as lonely as ever.

She has never thought of love, has never even considered it. She has tried once, going with one of her co-workers. He was bubbly and extroverted: everything that Florence wasn't. It lasted all of one date before Florence came back from the bathroom and saw him snogging their waiter, a young man who often took his younger sister to her yearly checkups with Florence. After watching them for a few seconds, she left without a word.

Florence thinks her loneliness is punishment for abandoning her brothers when they needed her most.

She walks up the long gravel drive to her cottage. This little town that she has now called home is a nice place, she supposes. But she wishes she could just spend time with someone, anyone. It is her birthday, after all. Yes, she has had "Happy Birthday" sung to her in the medical plaza's canteen. But she somehow feels like she wants a little more.

It is not quite dark yet. Florence can still make out her front stoop. And yet, she sees a dark object lying on top of it. This is not an uncommon occurrence: the neighbors' cat Bonnie likes to perch on the stoop when she is not happy with her fellow cat Clyde. When the neighbors pointed out the pirate reference (which Florence already realized) it was all Florence could do to smile knowingly and nod.

Everywhere she goes, she is reminded of her brothers. Perhaps that is her punishment as well.

Florence approaches the object slowly. Bonnie does not like to be snuck up on, which Florence learned the wrong way two months into her stay at her new home. The scratches took a few weeks to fade.

But she finds that the object lying on her doorstep is not a cat. In fact, it is not alive at all.

Florence picks up the small cardboard box sitting on the steps with one hand and opens her cottage door with the other.

Inside the cozy front room, she kicks off her shoes and curls up on the settee she had found at the local antique shop when she had first moved in. Turning the box over and over in her hands, she wonders at whoever the sender was. She suspects that it is a birthday gift, but there is one problem. She has told absolutely no one from her previous life the exact address to her small cottage. She has received all of her co-workers' good wishes at work during lunch, so this must mean that the package was shipped from someone wanting to wish Florence a happy birthday from her previous life.

Florence grabs a butter knife from her small arsenal of utensils and slits the box open. In the cardboard box is a small velvet jewelry box. A note is underneath the box. Florence pulls out the note first and reads it.

 _Many happy returns, Bee.  
_ _Mycroft_

A gift from her older brother. How did he know her address?!

But that is not important. Suddenly energized, Florence places the note on her mantelpiece and returns to the box. She opens the jewelry box and gasps.

A beautiful antique locket sits in the box, shining in the light. It is a modest piece of jewelry, yet it has a simple sense of honest beauty. Florence picks up the small pendant and gently cracks it open.

Inside are two miniature portraits. The one in the left-hand slot is a portrait of herself at around eight years old, taken in a photography studio for her birthday that year. Her hair has not yet darkened to the shade of brown it is now, but it is starting to take on a more tan shade than the near blonde that it was when she was a toddler. Her eyes, however, have already darkened to the shade it is now: a mix of various shades of gray with a generous pinch of blue to add dimension. Florence is wearing a navy-blue frock (the only one she wanted to wear as a child) patterned with tiny white stars randomly scattered across the fabric. She is grinning happily at the camera, front teeth not quite grown in yet and innocent eyes sparkling with plenty of mischief and humor. Her hair is left in soft curls gently falling across her shoulders.

In the other slot is a picture with three occupants. The girl from the first image is riding on an older boy's shoulders. She is laughing giddily, curls flying in the wind, as she clings to the boy. It is obvious that this pair are brother and sister: they share a somewhat similar eye color, hair color and face structure. Another younger boy is carrying an Irish setter beside the brother and sister, his black hair flying every which way as his blue-green eyes smile at the camera. He looks not much like the older boy, but parallels can easily be drawn between the younger boy and the girl's appearances. Therefore, the three occupants of the images could only be Florence and her two brothers.

She seals the locket and hangs it around her neck, still immersed in memories.

And meanwhile, the note winks at her from the mantelpiece: _Many happy returns._

* * *

"Many happy returns," Mycroft whispered to himself the next day as he and his PA, Anthea, sat in an unmarked black government car headed to Downing Street from the Diogenes Club.

"Hm?" Anthea jerked her head up from her BlackBerry and surveyed her boss. "Say anything?"

"Nothing of importance," Mycroft said offhandedly.

"But that still means you said something," Anthea pressed.

Mycroft sighed. "'Many happy returns,'" he told her. "That's all."

"'Many happy returns'?" She asked confusedly. "I've never heard the saying."

"It's actually quite common," Mycroft explained with a tired sigh. "Commonly used way to give good wishes for a birthday."

"Is this to do with the package you made me send by rush post the other day?" Anthea asked, her curls flipping naturally as she turned her head towards Mycroft.

"Yes, it's to do with it."

"Who was it for?"

"Take a shot, Anthea," Mycroft sighed, leaning backwards. "I'll give you a hint: it wasn't Sherlock."

"How am I going to...I don't know, _deduce_ to whom you addressed the nicely packaged, neatly packed box that was probably holding jewelry?"

Mycroft smirked at his assistant, who clapped both hands over her mouth. They had come to develop an easy friendship with each other, and gentle teasing and sarcasm cropped up every single day. "Keep going, Anthea. You've waded into it enough."

"Fine, Mr. Genius." She pulled in a deep breath and let it out in a big, slightly annoyed _whoosh_ , her sigh ruffling the dark curls falling across her face, which was arranged in a slightly puerile pout. "As was said, the box was probably holding jewelry. Am I right?"

Mycroft nodded. "Go on."

"And you said it wasn't for Sherlock. It wasn't as heavy as a watch. Oh no, not at all. The box itself wasn't very big, so nothing like a pocket watch. It looked to me as if there was something delicate in there. Most of the box's weight was from the jewelry box itself. So, nothing for a _man_. Am I right?"

Mycroft said, "Yes. In this case, your reasoning is correct."

"Alright. I further _deduce,_ " she added a little bit forcefully, "that it is a piece of jewelry for a woman that you really, really seem to like, since you asked me to send it by rush. Furthermore, this woman must be family of some sort. And not the Queen." She said the last two sentences quickly, as if trying to cover up something.

"What's your reasoning on the family part?" Mycroft asked.

"I'll leave you to your deductions," she muttered, blushing slightly. "Hint: it's got to do with sentiment."

"Oh. But yes, on all counts you were correct. It was a piece of jewelry for a family member- _and not the Queen,_ as you so nicely pointed out-and I particularly like her very much. Also, since it is to a family member, I let _you_ handle it, because I know how sullen you can be if I ask you to deal with a woman in my contacts that is other than your friends. _Yes, I notice._ However, you missed one thing that you would have caught if you'd paid close enough attention."

"And that is?"

"It was a birthday present."

" _Many happy returns!_ I get it now!" Anthea exclaimed.

"Took you long enough," he smirked, earning him a sharp prod in the arm from Anthea's elbow.

"Oi!" She said indignantly. "Not everyone's as quick or as smart as you are."

Mycroft detected a hint of hurt in her hazel eyes and looked down at his umbrella. "Sorry," he muttered.

"You _should_ be," she said indignantly and crossed her arms.

"The gift was for my sister," Mycroft muttered quickly.

"You have a _sister?_ " Anthea asked quickly, surprise evident in her tone. "Older or younger?"

"Younger. She is approximately ten months older than Sherlock."

"And she lives in the north of England."

Mycroft sighed. "Yes. We were always quite close, but she always considered herself a bit closer to Sherlock. And I don't know why she...I don't know why, and I _hate_ not knowing."

Anthea breathed out slightly. Obviously, she caught enough of his context to know what had happened to the sister. "What...if you don't mind me asking...is her name?" She asked him.

"Florence Margaret." Her name rolled easily, as if it was always used. "As a child, I constantly thanked whatever supreme being was watching over us that our dear Mummy did not choose a more...lengthy name."

"Like Sherlock's?" Anthea chuckled. "Well, in any case, it's a nice name. And she does seem nice. I would have liked to meet her."

"I'm afraid that won't happen anytime soon," Mycroft said darkly. "She's established herself as one of the best pediatricians in the area, shares a clinic with two other doctors, and has probably settled into a new life. It is most likely she never thinks of her old life anymore...never thinks of _us._ " He spat the last word out bitterly.

"How do you know that?" Anthea asked. "You never know, sir, she might be curled up on her couch full of _missing._ "

Mycroft looked at his PA uncertainly. _Is she drugged or something? What is it with all this ineffable twaddle about_ missing _?_

"No, Mycroft, I'm not drugged," she said calmly, as if she had read his mind. "If she had just ran away as you implied, I'm sure she has the capacity to...come back, so to speak. I'm sure she thinks of you and Sherlock often. Perhaps you should tell her of Sherlock's success in rehab."

Mycroft only thoughtfully hummed as the car pulled up in Downing Street.

 _Dear God, I don't know why I'm thinking this, but I miss my sister._

And in the north of England, in a nearly deserted clinic that afternoon, Florence Margaret Holmes opened her new locket and thought about a certain drawer in her desk, a drawer that had not been opened for five years.

* * *

 _This is the official midway point of this story. As was said in the description, this story takes place with one prologue, two acts with three scenes each, one intermission, an epilogue scene, and a finale. (Yes, I planned it to be like this because if you know me quite well, you'll know that I'm quite the theater nerd.) Here I would just like to thank LittleReaderOfBooks, who gave the Bee real, human flaws that ultimately change the course of this tale. Also, thank you to everyone who favorited/followed/reviewed, and to everyone who stuck with this story from the start. Even though I despise writing kid!lock because it's so hard._

 _I would now like to take this time to dedicate this story to all the people who are ashamed of something...whatever it may be. Ashamed of their actions, their words, their brashness/lack of it, ashamed of themselves in any way. Please, please, whoever you are, wherever you might be, do not let your shame overcome you. I know what it is like to feel ashamed, to feel such crushing shame that it feels like your heart is being wrenched out of your chest and squeezed until it is no more. Do not let your shame win. Think of the good things you have in your life. Don't let the shame be your everything. That should never have to happen._

 _And now, let us continue on with Florence's story._

 _Reviews would be greatly appreciated._


	6. Act II: Loneliness

**Act Two, Scene One  
** **A Feeling Whose Name Is Loneliness**

* * *

 _Dancing slowly in an empty room  
_ _Can the lonely take the place of you?  
_ _I sing myself a quiet lullaby  
_ _Let you go and let the lonely in  
_ _To take my heart again._

-Christina Perri, "The Lonely"

* * *

The pediatrician put on her spectacles, and the world came into greater focus.

Florence stared at the two picture frames on her desk, the only presence of family in the pediatrician's office. One contained a picture of her parents on their wedding day. The other contained a picture of two boys, one frowning distinctly at the camera and the other showing off a toothy grin, curls hanging over his eyes. An eternally young Sherlock was all she tried to think about when his name came to mind. Still bitter and saddened over her younger brother's choice, she refused to contact either brother, even after five whole years. Florence had chosen to run away from both her brothers and taken up a position in a clinic in the north of England. Every person who had come into her office had, in some way, asked about the two boys in the picture. Were they her sons? Nephews? To answer the question, however, Florence merely pointed toward the third occupant of the photo: a slight girl with gray-blue eyes, both arms thrown around a boy's shoulder, a perfect mix of the two boys' appearances echoed in the pediatrician's face.

Even as she ran away from her brothers, she was still proud to be their sister.

A knock sounded at the door, and Florence frantically scraped some papers together in order to launch herself out of her thoughts. "Come in," she called out pleasantly.

The door swung open to admit a slightly flustered nurse.

"Verity?" She asked, furrowing her brow and trying to deduce her, just like her brothers liked to do. _She doesn't look hurt, so nothing serious. She just looks extremely frustrated. Problem with a younger patient, then._ "Vaccinations?" She concluded, raising an eyebrow.

"Yes, Dr. Holmes," Verity said. She was used to Florence trying to deduce the nurses by now and was hanging in the doorway awkwardly. "Can you come?" She asked pleadingly.

Florence took a final glance at the picture of her eternally-young siblings and got up. "Of course, Verity. There's no way that I could stay away from a patient."

Florence's shoes clicked on the tiles of the clinic hallway with Verity walking along with her. "It's Danny Williams," Verity explained as they went. "Normally he's with Dr. Eleanor Mackenzie, but she's out of town for the day. It's a routine vaccination...but well, you'll see," she finished as they stopped outside exam room 4. Florence knocked gently on the door. Turning the handle, she carefully entered the room, where a small child was audibly sniffling beside a flustered nurse. "Hello, Danny," she called out softly as she stepped towards him. As she called his name, the boy looked up and Florence nearly went into cardiac arrest.

His messy curly hair was blonde: the wrong color. But the eyes that stared at the pediatrician in front of him were nearly the same heterochromatic shade as Sherlock. By sheer force of will, Florence forced herself to walk forward. _What a hurtful coincidence it was!_

"Don't tell me it's just a shot," he sniffled miserably. " _Ev'ryone's_ been telling me that."

"I'll sit with you, if you want," she said gently.

"Mummy's in the loo," Danny tearfully poured out. "And she hasn't come back yet and they said they had to do the shot now."

"His mother's having twins," the nurse pointed out to Florence sheepishly. Florence inwardly winced. The line for the loo was long: the other women's loo was shut down due to plumbing issues.

"I'll sit with you," she told the boy quietly. "Don't worry, you'll have me. I'm Doctor Holmes, but you can call me Florence. Everyone does."

The boy made no objections and let her sit next to him.

"Just don't look at your arm," Florence advised as the nurse prepared the boy's arm for the injection. "Look at me instead." Danny turned his heterochromatic eyes to Florence and she forced herself not to say anything silly. "That's about it," she said encouragingly. "So tell me, what are you interested in, Danny?"

His eyes brightened instantly. "I want to be a scientist," he said excitedly. "And invent things."

 _Coincidences are cruel, indeed._

Florence forced a smile. "Tell me more," she said, nodding at the nurse to begin giving the vaccine. Danny winced when the needle went in, but he kept his eyes on Florence and talked eagerly about the chemistry set he'd received for his birthday.

 _Oh, coincidences can really hurt._

When the nurse put on the bandage, the door opened and Danny called out happily, "Mummy!"

Florence turned and smiled kindly at the heavily pregnant redhead in the door. When the other woman smiled back at Florence, her dark blue eyes twinkled. "Thank you," she whispered to Florence. Then she turned to her son. "Wow, you've been very brave, Danny-boy."

"Doctor Florence helped me," Danny giggled happily, swinging his legs.

"Goodbye," Florence called after them as Danny scampered out to his mother.

A strange twinge echoed in her heart, and its name was loneliness.

 _I miss my brothers._

As Florence pedaled home that night, all she could think about was her brothers. Where were they? And most importantly, where was Sherlock? She hoped that he had gotten off drugs (after all, Mycroft would have told her if he had done anything to endanger his life even more). The only time she had contacted someone from her past had been Molly Hooper, who had taken up a position in Bart's. Although Molly had told her that Sherlock was in London, Florence refused to talk about him and the conversation had veered into more happier waters.

She pulled up to the small cottage she had been renting since she had arrived on that fateful day five years before, tears faintly streaking her cheeks as she had slammed into her new home. Florence had persuaded _(more like intimidated)_ Mycroft into sending her bicycle by post to her new home. She wheeled the last gift her brothers had given her into the cottage and closed the door, turning on the lights.

Her cozy home greeted her, accented here and there with spurts of blue in different shades. Sighing, she dropped her things and went to clean herself up.

Ten minutes later, wringing out her hair, she crossed over to her desk and sat down. Looking around at the drawers that had become so familiar over those long five years, she chose the one she wanted to open, the one that hadn't been opened in five years of bitterness and anger and... _missing._

Pursing her lips, Florence cautiously pulled open the small drawer like it contained a booby trap. In it was the shining glory of...a single slip of paper, folded once, twice, three times.

When Florence had finally taken her dark blue peacoat jacket to the dry cleaners after The Leaving, as she'd called it, she'd emptied all her pockets and found a slip of paper, a note written in her older brother's hand.

 _If you ever need me, call this number._

On the back was a phone number, which Florence had looked at, folded crisply, and dangled over the rubbish bin for a few minutes before throwing it into a drawer and leaving it there.

She sighed. This was a decision she would have to sleep on for the time being. Florence got up and made herself a hot cup of comforting tea before taking out _Les Misérables_ from her shelf and pulling her covers over herself. The note she laid gently on her nightstand.

Florence's eyes eventually drifted shut and she began to dream of government-worker brothers and chemist pirates.

Sun was filtering through her window blinds as Florence blinked her eyes open. As she sat up, she saw the note on her nightstand.

She made up her mind.

"I'm sorry, I've got to come in late," she apologetically said into the phone. Dr. Cass, the main doctor, made a noise of understanding at the other end of the line.

"That's all right, Dr. Holmes," she said. "Dr. Mackenzie will be in today. Take the whole day if you need to."

Florence tried to protest, but Dr. Cass cut over her. "No, you've come to work every single day for five years. You can take the whole day."

Dr. Cass hung up before Florence could protest any more.

Florence ate her breakfast in relative silence, staring at her brother's spidery handwriting as she did so.

Eventually, she found herself sitting on the steps of her cottage with the note and her cellphone. Shaking, she dialed the number and hit CALL.

* * *

Walking along the Los Angeles International Airport tarmac, Mycroft felt a persistent buzz in his pocket. He abruptly stopped and pulled out his phone. Anthea had stopped too. She quirked an eyebrow at him, obviously wondering what he was doing. The car that would take them both to the boring meeting they weren't looking forward to was waiting patiently ahead of them.

Mycroft took one look at the screen of his phone and nearly went into cardiac arrest.

There it was, emblazoned over the screen, the contact who was calling him.

 **FLORENCE MARGARET HOLMES, Mobile**

"Are you alright, sir?" Anthea asked cautiously, her soft tone laced with concern.

Mycroft knew he had a decision to make. He stared at the caller ID again, but he had waited too long and missed the call. It still showed up on the screen, though, and the so-called Ice Man clung to it like a lifeline.

"Bee," he murmured as if in a dream.

"Sorry?" Anthea looked a little scared.

"Bee." Urgency crept into his tone.

* * *

Back in England, Florence huffed an annoyed sigh and made to get up as the call switched to voicemail. _Just as I thought_ , her mind cried despairingly. _He doesn't care enough to pick up the bloody phone!_

She crumpled up the note angrily and tossed it into the bushes.

* * *

Halfway across the world, Mycroft turned to his PA, and Anthea saw a hint of desperation in his eyes. "Cancel the meeting," he said obscurely and whirled back to the plane, nearly running.

"What?!" She cried after him and ran as fast as her low heels would allow.

"I said, cancel it!" He snapped at her. " _Now!_ "

She whipped out her phone and tapped in a plethora of requests as she dashed into the plane after her boss. "And you aren't going to tell me why?!" She said as her fingers flew over the keys. "Is it a danger night or something?"

"No," he told her. "Worse."

And with this obscure proclamation, he punched a number into his phone, pressed it to his ear, and went to sit in the back of the plane.

* * *

Florence had been sitting on the front steps weeping into her knees for what seemed like ages. The note lay forgotten in the mulberry bushes around the steps of the cottage, her cellphone parked next to her.

Suddenly, the unthinkable happened.

 _Buzz. Buzz. Buzz._

Florence whipped her head around to its source and picked her phone up. The number she'd carefully pressed into the phone had showed up again. Florence eagerly hit the green button and held the phone to her ear.

She didn't know what to say to a brother she hadn't seen in years.

"Hello." She settled for the simple form of salutations. "Hello. Um...it's me, Mycroft. Can...can you hear me?"

"Of course I know it's you, Bee," came that familiar snarky voice from over the phone. Through tears, Florence managed a smile as she let out a half-sob, half-laugh.

"Where are you?" She managed to ask quietly. "It's okay if you can't tell me."

"On a plane. In California. Thinking about you." His response was frank and to the point.

"Well, that's much more exciting than where I am," she laughed. It was good to hear her brother's voice again after such a long time. "I'm just on my porch."

She heard her brother sniff a laugh on the other end. "I recently heard about a phone call placed from this number to a certain specialist registrar currently working in St. Bartholomew's Hospital. If you are interested, the recipient of the phone call goes by the name of Molly Hooper."

"Yes," she sighed, rubbing her forehead. "I _did_ call her, I'm sorry I didn't call you first. But it was just pleasantries, small talk. I asked nothing about you or...or…"

"Sherlock?" His voice had sharpened slightly.

"Yes, yes," she affirmed, waving a hand. "Um…" she started off awkwardly. "How is he?"

"He has gotten himself…" He sighed heavily over the line, as if preparing to deliver a death blow.

"What? Tell me, Mycroft. Hold nothing back," Florence commanded.

"He has gotten himself…" he repeated, took another deep breath, and continued.

" _A flatmate._ "

"Wait...what?" Florence sputtered. "A...a _flatmate?_ Who owns the flat?!"

"They divide the rent. Sherlock was the original occupant."

"No...no _way,_ " she laughed happily. This was so much better than anything she'd ever imagined. "You're kidding!"

"I'm not _kidding,_ Bee. I never do that." A hint of amusement crept into his voice. Florence hugged her knees excitedly. So her younger brother had gotten clean and had even gotten his very own flat! He'd come a long way from the addict she'd run away from…and she had an apology to make.

"I just wanted to say…" she started out, "I'm sorry that I ran away from you and Sherlock. I really am."

"I never knew why you went away, Bee. You never said anything, just packed up your things, made me ship them to an address, and left."

"He...he said he didn't give a damn about the life we'd had as children, together."

Silence fell.

"God." Mycroft muttered venomously. "He said that."

"Yes. He did." Florence affirmed. She took a deep breath. "And I ran away from my brothers when they needed me most because of something a high man said to me. That makes me ashamed."

Silence came from the other end of the line.

"Mycroft, are you still with me?" She asked quickly.

"Yes. Just pondering," he replied. "You know, I'm just going to tell you outright. If you told me that he said what he did much earlier…" A heavy sigh. "If you told me that earlier, then I wouldn't have…"

"Blamed yourself for me leaving?" Florence guessed with a sinking heart.

"Somewhere on that line."

"You mean, yes," Florence guessed again. "Can we change the subject?"

"My sentiments precisely," her older brother drawled.

"Could I visit you? I mean, you and Molly...and Sherlock?" She asked enthusiastically, crossing her fingers.

"That could be easily arranged. When do you plan to come to London?"

 _London!_ "As soon as possible. Maybe next week," she managed.

"Please wait," he replied and put the call on hold.

Florence put the phone down on her porch steps and stood up slowly, counting down.

"Three..two...one."

Then her happiness exploded. Jumping up and down happily, she squealed like an idiot and danced around her porch like an absolute madwoman. Sherlock wasn't dead in some back alley, Mycroft had expressed a vague sense of caring, and she could visit them both the next week and scare the pants off of her younger brother!

She didn't notice that Mycroft had taken the call off hold until she collapsed on her porch, giddy with happiness, and saw that the call had been taken off hold. Florence frantically placed the phone to her ear. "I'm sorry, Myc," she apologized quickly, heaving for breath. "I couldn't suppress my happiness."

A soft chuckle answered her. "I could hear that quite well, thank you very much. Now, to business. Do you mind departing a day from now?"

"Not at all," Florence replied.

"Superb. Listen carefully and follow my directions precisely. Your stay in London will only be two nights. Got that?"

"Hold on," Florence exclaimed, jumping up and walking back into her house. "I need to write this all down!"

When she was situated nicely at her desk, he continued. "At exactly ten in the morning a day from now, a car will pull up in front of your house. Put your things inside and climb into the backseat. Mention your full name in passing, and the driver will take you to the airport. When he drops you off, mention your full name again to any law enforcement around the terminal. They will then direct you to the airline where you will then check your bag in. An attendant will weigh your bag. Make your name conspicuous on the bag and they will exchange your coach ticket with first-class."

"You don't _have_ to do that," she pointed out.

"Everything's already been arranged. I will be waiting for you when the wheels touch down."

"Do you _like_ making things complicated?" grumbled Florence good-naturedly as she got up, put her brother on speakerphone, and began hauling together some things.

"No. I'd just rather talk to my sister face-to-face than over a phone."

Florence grinned. So much could happen over one phone call.

* * *

A day later, Florence followed the instructions her brother had given her to the letter and found that all had gone as he had predicted. Soon, she found herself on a plane, speeding towards her brothers.

She couldn't help but feel slightly nervous, even as she gazed out the window at the fluffy white clouds. So much had changed between the three of them since she'd left. Who was to say that things would stay somewhat the same in terms of family dynamic?

Just as he'd promised, when Florence walked out of the airport in London, she looked around for her brother, having no expectations of how he would have changed over the past five years. She wandered around the outside, holding her breath when she passed a sharply-dressed man smoking and leaning on an umbrella next to an equally sharply-dressed woman who looked like she was holding her breath as well.

Wait a minute. _Leaning on an umbrella._

Florence whirled back around and stared. The umbrella man was staring right back at her, his stormy eyes crinkled in amusement. He was busily stamping out his cigarette, to the obvious relief of his companion.

Florence laughed for a few seconds, then ran back to the pair. "Five years, and you start _smoking,_ brother dear." Sure enough, her brother's face crinkled into a smile and Florence threw her arms around him. "And second-hand smoking can kill a person," she whispered into his ear.

"Is that your way of saying that you've missed me?" He asked, patting her awkwardly on the back.

"Maybe," she chirped happily, giving her older brother a last squeeze before addressing his companion. "An associate of Mycroft's, I suppose?" She extended her hand to the official-looking woman for a cordial handshake. "I'm sure you've heard of me before, but I haven't heard of you."

"Hello, Florence Margaret," she said warmly, taking her hand and shaking it in welcome. "I go by a lot of names, but call me Anthea for the day and we'll both be fine. Welcome to London."

Soon, Florence found herself in an oddly quiet facility. A sign announced it as the "Diogenes Club" with a single rule: _No talking._ Mycroft led the way into what could only be his personal office, then shut the door. "We can talk in here," he nodded and said, sliding back behind his desk.

Florence rubbed her arms, feeling unusually cold. The whole place was pervaded with a chill somewhat like one found in a dungeon.

"I call this place _the dungeon,_ " quipped Anthea, noticing Florence's discomfort.

"Fitting name," she muttered, making Anthea sniff a small laugh in response.

She sat down in a chair in front of her brother. Rifling through his desk drawers, he pulled out a thick file. Written in her brother's spidery handwriting were the words

 **REDBEARD**

 **WSSH: CONFIDENTIAL**

"Redbeard?" She asked her brother, a twinge of sadness touching her heart at the memory of their Irish setter. "Really?"

"Code," he replied flatly. "Open it up."

She carefully opened the file. Sitting right on top was a newspaper clipping with a picture of her younger brother and another man in profile, under the headline "Hat-man and Robin: The Web Detectives."

"Came out only a few months ago," explained Mycroft.

" _Hat-man?_ Seriously?" Florence tried not to laugh. "Journalism's getting punnier and punnier."

Mycroft only cracked a small smile at this. "The thing I don't understand," she continued, "is... _Web Detectives?_ "

"People post queries to the two of them online or go to their flat," Mycroft replied. "Hence his title, _consulting detective._ "

"Smart," Florence commented. "How about the flatmate, 'Robin'? Can you give me some information on him?"

Mycroft pulled the file back and flipped through a few papers. Finally, he slid a picture and a list of data at her. Florence quickly analysed the man's face. He had a strangely longish nose and closely cropped blond hair and dark blue eyes. His mouth was in a rather pert expression, making him look uncommonly like a hedgehog with the combination of his closely cropped hair and long nose. "Dr. John Hamish Watson. Formerly an army doctor, part of the Royal Army Medical Corps and the Fifth Northumberland Fusiliers. Currently a general practitioner, physician, and occasional babysitter to one William Sherlock Scott Holmes."

"So this is the man who keeps our brother in check when we can't?" Florence clucked her tongue. "I believe he's quite qualified for the job. Keeping Sherlock in line sometimes gets as ridiculous as what Dr. Watson did in his past."

"And that is?" Mycroft asked.

"Invading Afghanistan," she replied. "I was just looking over his info. Said he was in Afghanistan before, poor bloke. He must have seen a lot." She flipped the sheet over. "And he must still have an infinite range of adrenaline to be able to make William Sherlock Scott Holmes toe the line."

Mycroft gave a soft chuckle. Florence slid the file back to her brother, leaned back, and clasped her hands. "I believe a visit is in order, then," she told him. "I wonder what I'll do. Jump out of a cake, I suppose."

"Waste of ingredients," he waved with a hand. "Pose as a client to get past the landlady. Sneak into the flat, sit yourself down somewhere, and surprise him when he gets in. Tell me how many seconds he'll take to deduce you before he realizes he's deducing his own sister."

Florence laughed. "Good one, Mycroft!" She clapped her hands excitedly.

"I can tell you that they've both gone out," Anthea mentioned. "Just saw it on the CCTV. I daresay you'll have time to also visit Molly Hooper, she's on her lunch at Angelo's."

"Perfect," Florence laughed again. She jumped to her feet. "I love a good joke. Let's get started!"

 _I can say hello to Molly and my brother,_ and _thank my brother's flatmate for being there when I wasn't._

 _I just hope he doesn't kill me first!_


	7. Act II: It's Me, Your Sister

**Act Two, Scene Two**

 **It's Me, Your Sister...Don't You Remember?**

* * *

 _Hello_

 _It's me_

 _I was wondering if after all these years you'd like to meet_

 _To go over_

 _Everything_

 _They say that time's supposed to heal you_

 _But I ain't done much healing_

-Adele, "Hello"

* * *

The sleek black government car pulled up in front of the Italian restaurant. Florence warily stepped out of the car, placing one boot on the ground before springing out of the car and slamming the door shut. She didn't bother to look back at the car as she straightened her purse strap and gazed towards the restaurant. Resolutely, she walked to the door and opened it up. A man with a ponytail greeted her. Angelo, she supposed. "Hello, ma'am. What can I do for you? The lunch rush's almost over, so we have some more tables ready. You came at the right time."

"Actually, I've already eaten. I'm, er, here to surprise an old friend from uni. I was told she was on her lunch break, so I came. Her name's Molly Hooper, have you seen her?"

"Right at that back table, ma'am," Angelo signaled to a small woman sitting with her back to them, reddish-brown hair plaited neatly down her back.

"Thank you," she nodded and softly crept over to the table, adjusting her spectacles as she went. Molly was busily eating her food, so she didn't notice at first when Florence gently slid into the seat across from her.

"Well," Florence fake-sighed gustily, as if in exhaustion. "It's been _quite_ a while."

Across from her, Molly jerked her head right up. "Oh my God!" she exclaimed, drawing attention to herself from nearly all of the rapidly thinning patronage of the restaurant. "I haven't seen you in forever, Florence!"

Florence threw her head back and laughed. _Dear Lord, that feels strange. I haven't laughed like this in a while._ "Well, I'm here now," she said. "For a visit."

The friends stood up and hugged. "God, Florence," Molly grinned, "You look much different than the pre-med student I knew!"

Florence studied her friend closely as they sat down. Molly had changed, too: much more serious, and more determined. But the same features remained: the sparkling brown eyes, reddish-brown hair perpetually pulled back, the prim nose turned up a tad at the end. "You've changed, too," she pointed out. "Head pathologist at Bart's and all. I'm happy you were able to get such a high position. I...I had to settle for a pediatrician's position in a small clinic up north."

"Why up north? You never told me why you didn't follow your brothers to London."

"It's...it's a long story."

"I've got time."

Ten minutes passed before she finished her narrative, concluding with her first call to her older brother after five years of isolation and loneliness.

"Wow," Molly said softly at the ending. "Sherlock really did do something horrible."

"How do you know?" Florence asked.

"When Mycroft abducted me off the street a few months ago," Molly shrugged offhandedly. "I asked after you. He skirted the subject like a virus. Literally."

"Now you know what really happened," Florence told her.

They chatted on more subjects for a while, gradually catching up after five years of minimal contact, until Molly looked at the clock and gasped. "Okay, I really, really need to go back to work now. Are you going to visit Sherlock?"

"Sure," she replied. "I've got the address from our older brother. I'm planning to show up and surprise Sherlock."

"Have fun with that," smiled Molly as they stood up and walked slowly to the door.

They bid good-bye to each other and parted, each on her own way.

Florence cycled the distance to 221B Baker Street, Mycroft having had a plain black bicycle planted in an alleyway near Angelo's. As she pedaled, she distinctly felt like butterflies were in her stomach- no, they were making their _home_ in her abdomen.

Five years since she flipped a table and ran away. Five years since the last time she saw her younger brother. Five years, and she couldn't stay away.

 _She never could._

Filled with indecision, Florence found herself on the doorstep of 221B Baker Street. She turned her head right and left. The only pedestrians around the area consisted of a few commuters racing to get to their work from lunch. Florence looked up to the second-story windows of the townhouse. Mycroft had given her the layout of her younger brother's flat, and she had found that the flat was on the second floor of the building. There was a single door into the living room from a set of stairs going to the second floor. It was the only entrance into the living room from the stairwell, and the most commonly used by clients. Florence planned to use this very door to enter the flat, which, according to Mycroft, was unlocked. As she expected, the window curtains were parted. However, there were no apparent occupants.

Florence stepped up to the imposing black door and tapped briskly. _Now or never,_ she thought. She stepped back as the nearly imperceptible sounds of footsteps echoed from inside the hall. Suddenly, the door flew open and a kindly, slightly aged woman poked her head out. Mycroft had told her who she was: Martha Louise Hudson, former drug dealer, exotic dancer, and current landlady of Sherlock Holmes and John Watson. "Are you here to see Sherlock?" she asked Florence.

"Er, yes," Florence shuffled awkwardly. "I...just need help," she fibbed, hiding behind her cover story as a client. "I _really_ don't know what to do anymore. My brother's... gone and I... I don't know who to turn to. This is the last resort." Against her will, her eyes filled with tears behind her spectacles. The cover story she'd made up on the spot was the closest to the truth about what had happened five years before.

"Oh, poor you," Mrs. Hudson said sympathetically, her gaze softening. "I'm really sorry, but they're both out at the moment. Would you like to wait? I'm sure they won't be out for long, and you look like you need a cuppa."

"Sure. I mean, if it's not a problem for you."

"Not at all, dear," Mrs. Hudson smiled sadly at Florence and let her in.

To her surprise, Florence found that Mrs. Hudson was not leading her towards 221A as she had previously thought. Mrs. Hudson showed her up the stairs to 221B and held the door open for her.

Cautiously, Florence crept inside. This took no bit of acting; in truth she was extremely nervous to set foot in her little brother's flat without his express permission. Also, she had absolutely no idea what to expect. To her relief, the sitting room that Florence stepped into was relatively clean and decorated in good tastes (albeit rather strangely with the bullet-ridden smiley face on the wall and the skull glaring at her from the mantlepiece).

Mrs. Hudson motioned to the couch underneath the shot-through smiley face and the skull poster. Florence gingerly sat down. To her surprise, the couch was extremely springy. _I wonder if Sherlock picked this out,_ she thought with a small smile.

"That's the spirit," Mrs. Hudson smiled gently. "I'll be right back with that cuppa. Make yourself comfortable, dear."

Florence set her purse gently on the floor and folded her hands on her lap to keep them from shaking.

Soon, Mrs. Hudson bustled back up to 221B with a loaded tea-tray. Florence couldn't help but stare. Mycroft had told her about Mrs. Hudson's extreme mother-hen tendencies, but she hadn't expected anything like this. Mrs. Hudson gently set the tea-tray on the coffee table with a box of tissues. "Just in case," she smiled. "Would you like me to sit with you until Sherlock and John come back?"

"Thanks, but no," Florence declined politely. "I'll be fine."

"All right," Mrs. Hudson replied. "If you need anything, just call." She disappeared down the stairs and Florence took the cup of tea into her hands, letting the hot drink radiate heat into them before taking a sip. She sighed. The warm presence of the tea definitely soothed her nerves. She continued drinking for a few minutes until all the tea was gone. Listening intently, she found that there were no other occupants and began working through the biscuits hungrily.

As she sat back and took another biscuit, she faintly heard the main door open and close with a bang. She involuntarily froze as she heard Mrs. Hudson saying something to whoever had been admitted...and then shoved the biscuit into her mouth whole as she heard a loud, deep male voice reply.

Frantically searching through her pockets and chewing at the same time, Florence yanked her spectacles off of her nose. She shoved them into her pocket and, on a whim, pulled out a pair of 3D spectacles and fixed them onto her face. _Let's see how long my dear brother will take to deduce who I am,_ she thought silently, remembering her promise to Mycroft. Florence leapt to her feet and silently crossed the sitting room to the desk between the two windows. She had been briefed on the layout of the flat and the basic client procedure by Mycroft. As she pulled the desk chair over to stand between the two armchairs on each side of the fireplace, she stood back and quickly surveyed her work. After checking how she looked in the mirror above the mantle, she quickly fixed her hair, swallowed the biscuit, and dropped into the desk chair.

Seconds later, she heard two pairs of footsteps pounding up to 221B.

And then, the door whipped open.

Florence held her breath and her heart began to pound a bit faster.

She willed herself not to turn around as the two pairs of footsteps circled around to her chair. One of the pairs of footsteps diverted to the chair on the left. Florence kept looking straight ahead, relying on her peripherals to give her a description of the man who had just claimed his red armchair. He looked exactly like the photo Mycroft had shown her, all down to the unusually long nose. _John Watson._

The other man paced around her once, twice, inspecting her. Florence tried to get a description of him from her peripherals and resisted the urge to sharply inhale at the sight of her brother, older and slightly taller than the last time she had seen him. His curly head bobbed as he threw himself into the edgy black armchair to Florence's right.

She swallowed again.

Sherlock Holmes, her little brother, her captain, took a deep breath, and Florence began to mentally time him for the string of deductions that was surely inevitable.

"You know who we are, otherwise you wouldn't have just come into Baker Street, let Mrs. Hudson fuss over you, and then sit in the client's chair awaiting our arrival. Those glasses are ridiculously terrible for disguise, which means that you want us to see your eyes without letting us see the color of them. Which brings the big question: why would you want to hide your eye color from us? I'll have to skip that one for now until I get further information. You've just come to London a few hours or so ago, by aeroplane. You also visited a corporate area, and then an Italian restaurant."

 _Forty-five seconds…_

Sherlock's eyes unfocused.

"Sherlock?" John asked, concerned.

He didn't reply.

Florence pursed her lips.

 _One minute._

"Corporate area." Sherlock cleared his throat. "Yes. And color of eyes, and…" His eyes unfocused again.

"And?" John prompted.

 _One minute thirty._

"I know exactly who you are."

 _Oh, God._

"Sherlock?" John asked again, even more concerned.

Florence's younger brother ignored his flatmate and leaped out of his seat, stepping up close to Florence. She held her breath.

Slowly, gently, Sherlock brought a hand up to her face and, with one swift motion, slipped the 3D glasses from her face, leaving Florence blinking owlishly at her brother.

"I need a name," Sherlock called out smugly, tossing the glasses aside.

Florence found that she had lost the ability to open her mouth, but her shoulders began to shake uncontrollably.

"I _need_ a _name,_ " Sherlock insisted.

Florence still couldn't move.

"YOUR. BLOODY. NAME!" her brother yelled.

" _FINE!_ " she yelled back, suddenly regaining the use of her tongue. "You want a name? I'll give it to you! _Florence. Margaret._ _ **Holmes**_ _!"_

Satisfied, Sherlock leaned back in his chair and steepled his fingers as Florence tacked on a hurried, "... _oh brother of mine_ " under her breath.

"Wait, what?" John looked like he had missed something big (which, in a way, he had). "I...don't understand? You have a brother- Mycroft. And now you have...a _sister_?"

"Florence, explain," Sherlock drawled lazily.

"It's one _hell_ of a long story, Dr. John Watson," Florence told him, her gray eyes scanning every inch of her younger brother.

"Oh, come now, Florence," Sherlock said, getting up again and tucking some of Florence's hair behind her right ear almost affectionately. Florence grabbed his hand and checked his pulse. _Steady._ So he wasn't too surprised at all at her appearance in his flat. "You just _can't_ resist telling a story, Bee. Don't you remember _The Adventures of Captain William and First Mate Florence?_ "

Florence's eyes widened and she pursed her lips. Sherlock sat back down. "So you remember."

"Of course. Why would I ever forget, Bee?"

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw John Watson's eyes bug out in shock. Florence had a good feeling that it was about the pet name and the allusion to the past.

"Why _would_ you ever forget, Sherlock?" She leaned back with a slight glare. "Danger nights, Sherlock. So many danger nights. _Too many_ danger nights."

"That's why you left?"

"No, Sherlock." Florence's voice was bitter now. "Because you were too stubborn to listen."

Sherlock sighed anxiously and tried to find a different place to look other than his sister's face.

"I _still_ don't understand," John Watson burst out, looking quite panicked and shocked. "Sherlock, you have a sister? A younger sister?"

"Good Lord," Florence mumbled stiffly. "That's what _everybody_ thinks. Older, Doctor Watson. Older sister. By around ten months."

"You're here, Bee, you might as well continue," Sherlock muttered, steepling his fingers and fixing his eyes on Florence.

Florence shot him a look that read simply, _Why have you put me on the spot for this? You owe me, brother._

He shrugged and arranged his mouth in an expression saying, _Well, you're the one that showed up here._

"As I've said, I'm about year older than Sherlock," Florence addressed John, keeping her eyes fixed on her brother. It _had_ been a while since she'd seen him last, and she was determined to drink in every last detail of her younger brother. "Though I always felt younger, due to Sherlock's extreme protectiveness towards me. I've always been slightly closer to him than to Mycroft."

Sherlock snorted a laugh at this, eyes crinkling in a smile.

"We were always close," she reflected softly. "Always us, always together."

"I remember the games," Sherlock put in. "That time I nearly walked the plank. You, screaming at me not to." He sniffed another little laugh and looked away. "You went supersonic that day, I remember. We had one hell of a time trying to explain it to Mycroft."

Florence quirked a small smile at her brother, then turned to John, continuing her story. "But then, just as we were both about to leave uni, everything went wrong." She swallowed. "Danger nights. Loads of them. The final straw was when Sherlock overdosed, I tried to talk to him, he said some things he _shouldn't have,_ I flipped over a table, and I ran away." She twisted her hands in her lap.

"I ran away- precisely at the moment that he needed me most. I took up a position as a pediatrician at a clinic in the north. And that's where I've been. Well...until now."

She looked at Sherlock. It was truly good to see him again. "God, Sherlock, I can't describe just how much I've missed you," she said quietly. "Every day. Every single effing day I wondered what it would be like if I hadn't run away just because of something you said. And I worried that you'd forgotten about me."

"Florence." Sherlock sounded uncharacteristically stern. He got up and stood by the fireplace. "Dear God, Florence, just come over here."

Unsteadily, Florence got up and crossed the room to where Sherlock was standing. Her breath caught in her throat as she realized that Sherlock was a full head taller than her, facial features more chiseled, heterochromatic eyes as kaleidoscopic as ever.

She squeaked as he pulled her into the biggest hug imaginable. Cautiously, she extracted her arms and wrapped them around his upper body, face pressed into her brother's chest.

She exhaled. "I missed you _so_ much."

She could hear John spluttering behind her, like he'd just swallowed a few flies.

"I would never forget you, Bee," Sherlock muttered into her hair. "Never forget the life we've shared as children."

Florence rested her head on the crook of Sherlock's neck and sighs. It was truly good to see her younger brother again.

"Um...Sherlock?" A voice came from behind, more of a highly awkward cough. _John._

Sherlock and Florence sprang apart, whirling to see what was the matter.

A new man stood at the door. His hair hung in a shock of silver over his face, and he was grinning mischievously as he slowly lowered his camera phone, savoring the moment.

Florence and Sherlock both blushed deeply as he pocketed the device.


	8. Act II: Meet Me Inside

**Act Two, Scene III**

 **Meet Me Inside**

* * *

 _Step one, you say we need to talk  
_ _He walks, you say sit down, it's just a talk  
_ _He smiles politely back at you  
_ _You stare politely right on through  
_ _Some sort of window to your right  
_ _As he goes left and you stay right  
_ _Between the lines of fear and blame  
_ _You begin to wonder why you came_

-The Fray, "How To Save A Life"

* * *

Florence pedaled through the streets of London with a slight smile on her face.

She hadn't been happier throughout all the years of her adult life.

It was quite a few months after her first visit to Sherlock when she decided to move closer to London. Besides, with the prospect of forgiveness on both ends of the equation, what better time to stay with her brothers forever?

Mrs. Hudson had given the last remaining guest room in 221B to Florence, free of charge, after she and her brothers had told the landlady exactly who Florence really was. It was slightly musty before Florence had moved in, with her meager possessions from her old cottage. And so, she'd camped out in Sherlock's own room for a time while he took possession of the couch. Florence had protested that _she'd_ rather take the couch, please and thank you very much, but her brother had drawn the line, and as John put it, "Once Sherlock's drawn the line, there's basically no way to erase it."

When the room had been fixed, Florence finally moved in and felt right at home, where her brothers were.

As for her job, she'd politely resigned to great sadness from both her patients and the clinic. They'd understood greatly when she cited "family" as the reason for her resignation. The Florence-and-her-brothers equation was well-known throughout the clinic.

Mycroft had actually gotten her a spot in pediatrics at Bart's. She'd protested that she'd rather have a clinic like her old one, or one like John's, please and thank you very much, but Mycroft had drawn the line. As John, Sherlock, _and_ Anthea all put it, "Once Mycroft's drawn the line, there's _absolutely_ no way to erase it."

 _Well,_ Florence thought wryly, _we should all change that to "Once the Holmes brothers have drawn their lines...if you want to redraw them then get ready for an outright battle."_

Mycroft had also brought her bicycle down to London willingly, which Florence had liked. She didn't want the taxicabs that seemed to gravitate towards wherever Sherlock was, or the mysterious black cars that Mycroft could call out of absolutely nowhere. Florence had much rather preferred her bicycle to a car.

However, there _were_ a few things she'd had to watch out for as a result of coming to live in London.

Because Sherlock had gotten so famous, Florence had decided to keep herself relatively out of the public eye. She'd tried to go around living life as usual, but she'd learned the hard way that it wasn't possible.

 _Against Mycroft's will, she'd accompanied Sherlock and John to the Moriarty trial just weeks earlier. She was utterly shocked when she parted her bedroom curtains that morning and a camera flash lit up at her face. Before she thought the exposure was finished, she managed to raise her shaking hands and jerk the curtains shut, but too late. The picture had been taken and the photographers and reporters outside were clamoring for another glimpse._

 _When she, Sherlock, and John all wrestled their way to the police car, cameras clicked, flashes popped, and reporters shouted out questions._

 _Both Sherlock and Florence had reddened in embarrassment when a few reporters' questions started getting rather personal._

" _Mr. Holmes! Who's the woman?"_

" _Mr. Holmes! Is it an affair? Is it platonic? Is she your wife?"_

" _Dr. Watson, did you have any knowledge whatsoever of this newfound relationship?"_

 _John grabbed her shoulder and whispered, "Don't. Reply. Whatever you do or say will be turned against you."_

" _Please just shut up, John, this is total idiocy right here and I need to mend it," she growled angrily and turned to the crowd, still with a hand on her brother's shoulder. "I HAVE NO ROMANTIC RELATIONSHIP TO SHERLOCK HOLMES!" she announced angrily before turning back and shoving John and Sherlock into the police car._

 _Later, she'd turned on the telly and tried to change the channel to a good news outlet. Unfortunately, she'd fumbled with the remote and changed the channel to an entertainment news-type show._

" _And next on our programme, the mysterious woman seen with the great consulting detective Sherlock Holmes before the Moriarty trials!" the overly-primped host told the camera, her overly white teeth winking at the viewers._

 _The scene jump-cut to footage of Florence herself, wavy hair in a messy ponytail at her window, jerking her curtains shut. Mouth open, Florence watched as the scene changed to herself again, much more neater in her good blazer and dress pants, knot of hair on top of her head, glasses flashing in the camera flashes popping every other second._

" _This woman, along with the blogger Dr. John Watson, escorted Sherlock Holmes out of his flat this morning. She hasn't been seen in the public eye before. Rumor has it that she is some romantic interest of the detective's. But who is she really? Sources currently combing through the blog of Dr. Watson speculate that she had probably been a client of the ever-popular and elusive Sherlock Holmes, and that the detective had taken a liking to her. However, when would this have happened, and why has she moved in with the notably unmoving detective?" the reporter's voice said over the footage and yet more images of Florence with an arm around her brother, walking to the courtroom with her head down._

 _Footage popped up of a reporter banging on 221A's door, trying to get something out of Mrs. Hudson while the poor landlady called out desperately from inside, "No comment, do you hear me? I said, I have no comment! Get out of my flat!"_

 _That had ultimately driven Florence across the line._

 _Rolling up a newspaper on the coffee table, she sprang to her feet and launched it at the telly angrily as the reporter kept on talking in her annoying voice-_

" _Florence, what the-" John's voice broke in from the kitchen, and he poked his head out, tea in hand, hair slightly rumpled._

" _That's complete and utter idiocy, John!" Florence roared angrily, gesturing furiously at the screen, rapidly turning scarlet with rage. "What the...of all the things!" Words failed her as she rolled up another newspaper and flung it at the telly._

" _Florence, I know-" John tried to interrupt._

" _Bee, what-" Sherlock's voice broke in as he stepped out of the kitchen, presumably from either his bedroom or the loo. Blindly, Florence threw a newspaper at him, too. But he caught it._

" _Bee, I'm not the telly, don't throw papers at me," he said placatingly._

 _Florence abruptly stopped, hair awry. "Oh. Oh, good God, Sherlock, I'm sorry."_

" _No, it's alright," he said distractedly, tossing the newspaper at John, who put his tea down and caught it. "What the hell-"_

"' _Sherlock Holmes: Possible Love Interest,'" John read off of the screen. "Christ, who would-"_

" _Idiots, that's who!" Florence proclaimed, thrusting a hand at the screen._

" _I see, but Florence, the point is that they're idiots," Sherlock said pointedly. "Don't pay them any mind and hopefully they'll do the same."_

" _I don't think they'll leave it alone, though," John interjected, a worried expression on his face._

" _Perhaps…" Sherlock's eyes unfocused before he left the room abruptly._

 _John and Florence had shrugged at each other before John poured Florence a cup of tea and they started talking about other things, trying to put the reporter's comments out of their heads._

Florence continued to pedal, faintly remembering the occurrence with a slight frown on her face. Her brother's newfound fame in the media had forced her to take measures to prevent things like that trial from happening again. When she cycled to work, she stored her bicycle at a nearby address, away from the prying eyes of the public. Before making a go for her bicycle, she'd cover her face and exit the flat from Mrs. Hudson's door to a back alley, where she'd quickly exit and run to the address where she'd find her ride. She'd then load all her things on the bicycle, put on her helmet, and make her way to Bart's. At first it had been rather a hassle, but it had eventually gotten easier for her over time.

At present, Florence could complete the whole bicycle-retrieval procedure in only five minutes.

Luckily, she'd managed to stay out of the public eye, and the rumors had eventually died out. But Florence was still careful…

She was also willing to loosen up, which was why she was pedaling along the pavements of London on that nicely bright day off, aviators fixed firmly on her face and hair tucked into her helmet. She couldn't risk recognition.

Florence slowed down near a park and began slowly pedaling through it, taking in the people relaxing on its benches until she spotted a free one. Rather unfortunately, it was near a street. She didn't like it. But there weren't any unoccupied ones, so she shrugged it off. _I'll just be quick here. No time to waste._

Braking, she kicked the bicycle stand into place and dismounted. She fancied that she could hear her back sigh in relief.

Collapsing onto the bench, she stared up at the sky and smiled. Oh, even through all the things that were going on, she was still very much happy to be in London. _It's where I belong,_ she thought happily.

Taking out her water bottle, she unscrewed the cap and sipped gratefully, lowering her gaze to her shoes as she swallowed and took another sip.

She looked up to street level and nearly spat out the water.

An unmarked black car had rolled quietly to a stop right in front of her.

Florence sat ramrod straight as her newfound friend Anthea smoothly got out of the car.

"Do you _practice_ getting out of cars, A?" she asked with a grin.

"Hello, Florence," Anthea replied solemnly.

Florence's grin subsided. She could tell something wasn't quite right…

"Are you to take me to my brother?" she asked, knowing the answer before the question finished exiting her mouth.

Anthea nodded. "Get in the car."

Florence cast a doubtful look at her bicycle.

"Don't worry, we'll take care of it," Anthea said, sensing her thoughts.

Florence grabbed her purse warily and walked the short distance to the car, sliding in. Anthea smoothly closed the door for her and sat on the other side.

"Sometimes I _do_ practice getting out of cars," Anthea confessed as the car began moving. "First impressions count, I've always known. Especially when you're about to abduct someone," she added with a small laugh.

Florence smiled.

"But we'll be talking about very serious things concerning your other brother," Anthea said solemnly, a quick change from her cheerful demeanor of before.

"A-alright," Florence murmured brokenly, staring out the window.

They pulled up to the Diogenes Club and got out of the car at the same time. Anthea waited at the door as Florence stuffed her water bottle into her bag before hurrying to catch up.

A breeze of cold air greeted the two women as they entered the place. The man at the front desk snapped to attention as Anthea approached. She'd apparently been palming an identification card the whole time, and she flashed it to the attendant, who nodded her through and turned to Florence.

Florence detected a flash of panic in Anthea's eyes and realized her friend wasn't confident with signing. _I've got it,_ she mouthed silently to Anthea. She rummaged around her bag for her pocketbook. Finally, she drew it out and located her own identification card, the card that Mycroft had slipped into her things when she'd moved to London. It granted her access into the Diogenes Club whenever Mycroft wanted a report on how things were going.

She flashed it to the attendant, who nodded and signed, _Forgive me, but I haven't seen you around before.*_

Florence raised an eyebrow. This attendant must be new. His signing was slightly unsteady, and she hadn't seen him before, either.

Luckily, she knew quite a bit of BSL, as she'd had a few deaf and hearing-impaired patients show up in the clinic. They'd all been referred to her because of her knowledge on the topic.

 _I am a relation of M-Y-C-R-O-F-T H-O-L-M-E-S,*_ she signed and spelled out.

The attendant nodded (was that a trace of fear in his eyes?) and waved her through.

Anthea led Florence to the Stranger's Room, where Florence was often taken to talk to her older brother on the days that he sought her presence.

The man in question was sitting at a conference table, poring over papers. Twelve manila files lay spread out across the conference table, and the last one lay open in front of Mycroft, its contents being read in his hands. As Anthea and Florence entered the room, he neatly put the documents back into the file and laid it along with the others. Getting up, he approached Florence and Anthea, sliding his hands into his trouser pockets.

"Ah. Sister dear, welcome." He nodded to a prim tea-tray on the conference table. "Make yourself comfortable." Turning his gaze to the manila files, all labelled neatly with... _were those code names?_ Florence wondered in shock, clutching at her bag a tad tighter, as her older brother raised his eyebrows slightly.

"We have much to discuss today. Where would you like to begin?" As he turned his unreadable silvery eyes towards Florence, she involuntarily gave a little shudder. His eyes had grown colder since childhood, while hers had grown warmer. Polar opposites, and yet...

Florence put her bag down and poured herself a cup of tea before answering her brother seriously.

"From the beginning, if you please."

* * *

"... _That_ one is the most improbable of all of the plans," Mycroft finished around an hour later, closing up a file folder and handing it to Anthea. The assistant made sure all of the documents were in place before laying it back in its place on the table. Mycroft steepled his fingers once more and nodded to the final folder. "Well, it looks like I've almost explained all of the possible plans for the Moriarty meeting. I'll leave it to you to open _that_ one, sister dear," he nodded towards the final folder. "That one is...definitely something you should consider."

Cautiously, Florence shifted so she could grab the folder and took it in her hands. Laying it on the table in front of her, she carefully opened the folder.

"Please read the documents," Mycroft got up to order another tea-tray as Anthea sat solemnly across from Florence.

Florence carefully tapped each paper into neat formation and started reading. She started first with the title on the top of the first page.

 _LAZARUS_

Frowning slightly, she recalled the Biblical story, in which Jesus had miraculously raised Lazarus from the dead. For some reason, it made her think of Dickens.

" _Recalled to life,_ " she whispered out loud.

" _Tale of Two Cities_?" Anthea guessed.

Florence nodded distractedly and read on, growing more distressed by the second. The plan detailed a fake suicide: Sherlock launching himself off of the roof onto a cushion far below, temporarily being replaced by a cadaver until Sherlock himself had the appearance of a suicide jumper. By the second page, she put down the papers and shakily poured herself another cup of tea. She wasn't even finished with the details of the Lazarus procedure itself.

"Are you alright, Bee?" Mycroft asked, a slight hint of concern lacing his tone.

"Just...it's rather a lot to take in," Florence confessed quietly, taking a quiet sip.

"There are long-term effects to remember because of the Lazarus procedure," Anthea remarked quietly, casting a short glance at Mycroft. "But that's later in the document. I added it in last-minute because we can't forget them."

Florence nodded anxiously and picked up the documents again.

Suddenly, she read a passage and nearly spat out her drink again as she read a note in the margins, in Mycroft's slanting script.

 _Additionally, there should be someone to delay Dr. Watson while Sherlock prepares to replace the cadaver on the pavement._

Another note followed it, in rounded cursive: probably Anthea's handwriting.

 _It would be wise to consider a cyclist to delay Dr. Watson. Not out of place, yet mysterious enough to remain incognito. We cannot risk recognition._

And then a final sentence from Mycroft.

 _The Bee will do._

His signature closed the small exchange with an awful sort of certainty that made Florence shiver.

"You want me to do _this_?" Florence said, slapping the documents shut and tossing the file on the desk. "Fine. I'll help you in your little masquerade, Myc," she continued, a little bit apprehensively. "But on one condition."

"Oh?" Mycroft said.

"He will be able to come straight back to Baker Street afterwards and prove to John and Mrs. Hudson that he's safe. Right?"

An uneasy silence fell.

Florence grew more anxious. "Right?" she asked.

Anthea and Mycroft looked at each other uneasily. Mycroft's silvery eyes met Anthea's dark ones, exchanging something only they could both understand.

"He _won't_?" Florence asked, realizing suddenly.

Mycroft looked at her.

"It's for the best, Bee," he said comfortingly. "He needs to destroy the rest of the criminal network."

"But…" Florence stuttered, heart pumping wildly. "But…" Rage coursed through her, and she slammed her tea on the table and jumped up. "I won't."

"Bee," Mycroft tried to say placatingly.

"No," Florence snapped angrily. "I _can't_ do this to my friend. John is not only a colleague, but...I _owe_ him, Mycroft. I can't tear him apart like this. No."

Anthea stepped forward and laid a hand on Florence's shoulder. Florence tried to shrug it off, but Anthea kept it there.

"It's impossible," Anthea said quietly. "There's no way that we can tell John that Sherlock is alive until...well." She cast another glance at Mycroft. "It might be that we'll never tell John that Sherlock is alive. John will move on, as all people do."

"But what about me?" Florence knew she sounded selfish, but she was truly wondering. "What will become of me?"

"You will... _move on,_ inevitably," Mycroft said quietly, getting up.

Anthea moved away from Florence and let Mycroft place a hand on Florence's face.

Florence's eyes welled up with tears.

"You _will_ move on, Bee," Mycroft said quietly. "I will not allow you to brood over what will happen if the call turns out to be _Lazarus._ "

"How _will_ I move on?" she asked, feeling a tear escape and slide down her face.

"I don't know about that, Bee," Mycroft sighed, sounding like that tired fourteen-year-old at the top of the stairs. "I hate to say that. But I really _don't_ know."

"So we're going to be making John suffer, Myc?" Florence asked, some of the old fire returning as she kept thinking of her friend. "And Greg? And Mrs. Hudson? So we're going to make them all suffer?"

"Sherlock has to look like he has died, Bee," Mycroft told her shortly. "That's the whole point of _Lazarus._ "

"But Myc!" Florence protested, stepping back and almost barreling into Anthea. "I don't know if I can bring myself to do something like that!"

"Do you want to save lives, Florence?" Mycroft retorted a bit angrily, leaning in. "Because if things go a certain way, we will HAVE to do this. And this will be the ONLY way to save everyone's life."

Silence fell between the two of them, the two minds working on polarly opposite planes. Florence and Mycroft stared daggers at each other, nearly identically stormy eyes flashing angrily.

Finally, Florence sighed and averted her gaze.

"Fine," she muttered. "Fine. I will do it, Myc. But that does not mean that I like this method at all."

"Thank you," Mycroft whispered imperceptibly.

Jerking her gaze back to Mycroft, she witnessed her stony older brother drop his defense and look somewhat vulnerable, if only for a few seconds.

"Come here," she said quietly.

He took a step forward and Florence shakily held him as tight as she possibly could.

As they broke away, Mycroft whispered, "You have to speak to him, Bee. Repair anything that needs to be repaired. Even after the rooftop meeting, Bee, he might not make it back to London at all. Maybe not even to England."

For the first time, the full magnitude of the situation fell on Florence's head like a pile of bricks. She could only nod quietly and gather her things, walking to the door.

Before turning the handle, she paused.

"So," she said quietly, turning around. "Three bombshells in one afternoon. One, Sherlock might die and I'm going to have to make up with him. Two, I might be able to help him die. Except, number three, he won't actually die."

"Sounds about it," Mycroft said with a sigh, inclining his head.

* * *

Florence found her bicycle outside of the Diogenes Club, as well as her helmet. Sighing, she looked around before putting on her aviators and shoving her helmet over her curls.

She began to pedal to 221B, thinking about everything her older brother had told her. When she finally rolled to a stop outside where she deposited her bicycle, she absentmindedly secured her bicycle and hurried to 221A's door.

Knocking, she called out, "Yoo-hoo," hearing Mrs. Hudson listening to something on the radio through the door.

"Come in, dear," the landlady called out softly.

Smiling slightly to hide the new knowledge she'd been given, she quickly turned the handle and walked into 221A.

"Just passing through, Mrs. Hudson," she said airily.

"Oh, good bicycle ride?" she asked with a smile, salt-and-pepper hair resting in curls on her head. "You were out for quite a bit."

"Oh, I just went through my usual routes a few times. Enjoying the air, you know," Florence fibbed through her teeth.

"That's wonderful, Florence," Mrs. Hudson said gently. "Just going on with life despite everything, eh?"

"Absolutely," Florence said. "Got to go," she added, knowing she'd done enough fibbing for the day.

"Good-bye, dear," Mrs. Hudson called after her as she walked up the stairs to 221B.

The living room door was closed and strains of violin music could be heard from inside. _No clients, then,_ she guessed and knocked softly before opening the door.

"I'm back," she announced. John was sitting in his chair, reading a newspaper. Sherlock was by the window, composing and trying out the music at intervals on his violin. Florence rather jealously wished that they could have gotten a piano in 221B for her to play, but it probably would have gotten harmed by Sherlock's antics.

John turned, saw her, and smiled. "Hello," he said, dark blue eyes sparkling. Florence felt a swoop of guilt in her stomach as she thought about _Lazarus._ Her smile faltered slightly.

"You alright, Florence?" John asked, concern evident in his voice.

"Yes, I-I'm fine," she excused herself. "Almost got recognized, but I covered my face before they could take a picture or anything of the sort. And I'm fast."

"That's good. Can't risk anything," John sighed, going back to his newspaper.

"Sherlock," Florence directed to the man by the window. His head jerked up, curls bouncing, and their eyes met. He must have read something tacit in her eyes, as he put down his violin in his case.

"What is it, Bee?"

"We need to talk," she said quietly. Sherlock's eyes flitted to John momentarily. "Privately," Florence added. "Dining room. _Now._ "

John gulped and turned on _Doctor Who,_ turning up the volume.

* * *

Surprisingly, Sherlock wasn't surprised that Florence had been told of the thirteen outcomes of the rooftop meeting. But they'd talked about past events, including Florence's fleeing from Sherlock's addiction, or as he'd put it, "usage."

And Florence had decided to forgive him.

"So. You forgive me, then, Bee?"

Florence sighed and averted her gaze. Immediately, she wished she hadn't, as she found herself addressing a pair of lungs in a jar on the counter. "I can't forgive you for throwing away your talents in the first place. But I can forgive you for what you said to me...because I know now that...that that's all false."

Silence fell for a few moments.

"Thank you," Sherlock said imperceptibly, so that John couldn't hear. "I can at least...go...knowing that."

They got up and hugged in the middle of the kitchen, Florence pulling her brother close and burying her face in his aubergine shirt.

When she pulls away, there are tears all over Sherlock's shoulder.

 _Forgiveness,_ she reflected later, sitting back-to-back on the couch with Sherlock as they paged through medical journals and debated on what they found. _It's truly a beautiful thing._


	9. Act II: The Aftermath

**Act Two, Scene Four**

 **Aftermath**

* * *

 _Present Day_

"No. No...way. It's impossible."

"I'm sorry, Greg. B-but...it's true."

Florence laid a hand on the DI's shaking shoulder as they both stared at the dark pool of blood on the pavement. She didn't care that her clothes were also marked with the stuff.

 _Marked with death,_ she couldn't help but think.

Molly was on Greg's other side. "I'm sorry," she said quietly. "It's t-true. I just p-performed the a-autopsy, Greg. I'm so, so sorry," she managed to choke.

"And I just identified the…" Florence hung her head, finding that she could not finish her sentence, her _lie._

"No," Greg said, feeble and strong at the same time. "You two must have been through _so_ much. _I-I_ should be the one offering condolences."

"You were one of his friends," Molly said quietly. "You need condolences just as much as we do, Greg. All of us need condolences, and it's the most Florence and I can do to help give it."

"Molly...you've helped him out through so much," Greg barreled on as if he hadn't been listening. "You helped him get through his addictions, helped keep him on the straight and narrow, Molly. I know it's hard for you right now...it's so hard for me, too."

Molly's eyes flooded with tears and she looked down at the pavement, a tinge of pink appearing on her cheekbones.

"And Florence…" the DI trailed off sadly. "Your brother."

"I know, I know," she said distractedly, staring at the sky and wringing her hands.

 _Your brother._

"My brother…" she whispered, although she still knew that Sherlock was alive. Feeling her eyes begin to fill with tears as Molly's had, she couldn't help but let out a sob. Lestrade and Molly both put an arm around her, murmuring things she quite couldn't catch except one short thing.

 _Let's go back to Baker Street._

* * *

Breaking the news to Mrs. Hudson was definitely the worst, out of all the people Florence and Molly sat down and gave the news. John was there, numbly sitting on Mrs. Hudson's floor with his head in his hands. The landlady widened her eyes in shock, dropped into a chair as Florence rushed forward to console her, and cried unashamedly.

"How could this happen? He's my boy, and yet he _isn't,_ " Mrs. Hudson sobbed in despair. "My boy who abuses my wall, blows up the appliances, stores body parts in the freezer, conducts experiments in the kitchen on a daily basis! My _intelligent_ boy! How could this happen?"

"I don't know, Mrs. Hudson," Florence said numbly. "I really don't know."

"And your brother!" Mrs. Hudson wailed in anguish, clutching at Florence's jumper sleeve and wrenching what was left of Florence's heart apart.

"I _know,_ " she said numbly. "He's _my_ little boy, too, Mrs. Hudson. My little boy with the messy curls who would lie down with me underneath the duvet and talk about life. My little boy who would laugh and cling to me while we rode the bicycle down hills during summer. My little boy who would nap with his head on my lap while I read a book and leaned against the dog. My _Sherlock._ " She couldn't go on.

John looked up at her, eyes full of sorrow as she collapsed into the other chair and reached out to him. With a shaking hand, the army doctor caught the pediatrician's hand and squeezed.

Florence reached out another hand to Mrs. Hudson, who took it and sobbed.

She looked up slowly at her pathologist friend from uni and caught Molly's eye, silently wilting in the lies they'd buried themselves in.

* * *

 _Suicide of Fake Genius_

Florence averted her eyes from the blaring headline as she waited in the checkout line in the market. She couldn't bear to look as she tightened her hold on her purchases. It had only been a few days since the fall, and she was trying to clear her life up again. John was still at the flat, trying to put himself back together. Florence had offered to buy the groceries so he didn't have to show his face in public. But there was still a chance she would get recognized.

It was a chance she was willing to risk, for her colleague and friend's sake.

She moved up in line, placed her purchases on the counter: milk, eggs, bread, crisps...only the basics.

"Hello," the cashier said cheerfully, peppy blonde ponytail swishing over her shoulders as she checked each item out.

"Good morning," Florence said seriously, rummaging through her pocketbook for her card and ID to present to the cashier.

 _Oh, God, no._

Florence realized her mistake much too late as she handed over her card and ID.

 _I should have gone to self-checkout._

The cashier took one look at her ID and her electric-blue eyes widened.

" _Holmes?"_ she gasped loudly, causing many of the clientele to whip around and stare. Florence's face grew warm as she made to grab the ID back out of the cashier's hand, but the girl stepped away. "Oh my God," she squealed. "You're his _wife,_ aren't you?"

"No. No!" Florence said, panicked. Her voice came out in a higher register than usual. Already, customers were raising their mobiles, taking pictures and chattering loudly. "No, it's not like that!"

"What's he like in bed?" the cashier asked confidentially, waggling her eyebrows.

"What's her _name_?" someone yelled.

The cashier consulted the ID, then yelled back, "Florence Holmes."

"Holmes?! As in _Sherlock_ Holmes?"

"That fake genius."

"Didn't he jump off of a roof or something?"

"Yeah, couple days back. It was at Bart's. Suicide jumper."

"Wow, what a waste!"

"Didn't he kidnap some children?"

"Good riddance!"

"Why'd she marry _him,_ anyhow?"

"Maybe he took her in or something."

"Wow, that's desperate."

"Desperate little-"

Florence had forsworn losing her temper, but she couldn't help it any longer.

"That's _Doctor_ Holmes to you," Florence snarled loudly, whipping the ID out of the cashier's hand and angrily stuffing it into her pocketbook. " _Doctor_ Florence Holmes. And I'd like to have my groceries checked out, please and thank you very much."

The shop fell silent, and the cashier hurriedly checked out Florence's groceries. With a hint of satisfaction, Florence noted that the old Holmes temper seemed to serve her well.

"Thank you. Have a _fantastic_ day," Florence's voice dripped with sarcasm as she dropped her card back into her pocketbook, stuffed the pocketbook into her purse, and whirled from the store, curls swishing over her shoulders as she headed out.

As the door swung open, she heard a single camera click.

But she didn't particularly care anymore.

* * *

Florence returned to a cold, empty flat. She half-expected her brother to burst out of his bedroom and say something completely obscure and strange that absolutely nobody would understand.

But she stared at his door for five straight minutes.

And nobody came.

"John!" Florence called out loudly. Her voice echoed around and around and around the flat.

 ** _And nobody came._**

"John?" she tried again, worry creeping into her voice.

 _He must be in his room. I mustn't disturb him,_ Florence thought quietly before depositing her groceries in the cleaned-out kitchen and preparing herself some tea.

 ** _And nobody came._**

As the kettle boiled, she got up and got herself a book from Sherlock's personal library. Eventually, she decided on his unfinished _magnum opus,_ started as a university student and left unfinished at present: _Practical Handbook of Bee Culture._ In his cramped hand, she read the title, added at a later date. _With Some Observations upon the Segregation of the Queen._

She sat down at the table.

 ** _And nobody came._**

After finishing her tea, she turned to the book. Sherlock's voice echoed in her mind with every word she read.

She found that she couldn't bring herself to read it anymore.

Florence closed the unfinished book and returned it to the shelf.

 ** _And nobody came._**

Sighing sadly, she got up and crossed the room.

Florence noticed something on Sherlock's music stand near the window and crept closer to inspect it.

It was a piece, untitled, unfinished.

Florence's eyes scanned the staff paper. The piece Sherlock had been composing was in A-flat major: Florence's favorite key signature. As Florence looked closely, she noticed a note in the upper right-hand corner: _Violin, to be played accompanying a piano._

And she noticed another note in the upper left-hand corner, in Sherlock's cramped handwriting: _Sherlock Holmes, for the Bee._

Florence's eyes welled up with tears. This was a duet piece. Meant for two.

 _Meant for her._

She closed her eyes and imagined the piece, complete, being played on the violin by Sherlock and on the piano by herself. She imagined all of their friends watching as they made music together. Brother and sister, always together. Friends forever.

She was seized with a desire to hear the piece for herself. Florence whipped her head around until she found what she was looking for.

She dived onto the floor and retrieved Sherlock's violin case.

True, she was more of a pianist than a violinist. But she _did_ know how to play the violin, and what better time to use that skill than now?

Carefully, she fiddled with the clasps holding the case closed and opened it up.

Sherlock's violin, probably the most well cared-for item in his possession, lay neatly among the velvety folds of the case, shining glossily in the faint light through the curtains. Florence picked the bow up and rummaged in the case for rosin. When she felt that the bow was satisfactory, she picked up the violin and tested out a few notes. She winced slightly: it was somewhat out of tune. But she couldn't help that. She needed a piano to tune it, and that was something that she, unfortunately, didn't have at the moment. Perhaps she could wheedle Mycroft into tuning it for her.

She shrugged and looked at the music again, raising the bow and letting it hover over the strings for a moment before taking a cleansing breath and beginning to play.

It was shaky, yes, since it was being played for the first time, but it was a melody. A melody that spoke of companionship, sunlight shafting through tree leaves, playful reminiscences of childhood. And then the mood plunged, as well as the key. A minor key signature introduced the melody's melancholy relation. Low and deep, Florence realized the theme halfway through and used her emotions to correspond with it. She channeled the danger nights, the table she'd flipped over, the wind whisking through her hair as Mycroft shouted behind her to _come back._ And then after a few seconds' rest, the melody shuddered back to life, bringing with it a calming mood, evoking wrongs made right, forgiveness, hope.

Florence sensed the piece ending before it actually did, and she raised her bow after playing the last note.

It _did_ sound _very_ unfinished.

She could sense the unfinished sense of the composition left on the music stand. And she realized she'd been playing it all wrong.

 _The piece is for a violin, is it not?_

 _This is not YOUR story, Florence...it's Sherlock's._

"Ah," Florence realized thoughtfully.

She raised the bow again and started over.

She whisked through the parts of happiness and joy, infusing memories of Redbeard, imaginings of life on the high seas, talking about life underneath a duvet, picnics in the clearing. She tried to make it more of Sherlock's story rather than her own.

 _You have no control who lives, who dies, who tells your story._

When the theme grew colder, darker, she tried to think about how it felt to have a drug-induced high. She tried to convey a sinister sort of joy, but the whole part passed all too quickly, and she noticed something else.

The rest that she'd rushed through earlier was longer than she'd expected.

She realized that this rest was intended for _her,_ for a piano portion. Who knew what the portion held? She rifled through the papers looking for the piano half of the piece, but to her disappointment there was nothing to be found.

Sighing, she raised the bow and continued on, putting more and more emotion into the slowly ascending end. _Forgiveness. Missing. Peace. Hope._ The emotions, long put away due to her brother's faked suicide, surged back to life again in her chest and made her eyes sting with tears.

As she finished off the unfinished work, she raised the bow off of the strings ever so slowly.

 _Why does it have to end?_

A choked sob jerked her back to 221B, to harsh and blinding reality.

John was standing at the doorway to the living room. His hair was rumpled, eyes dark. He looked like he hadn't gotten a good night's sleep in years.

"Oh. John," Florence said, hurriedly putting the violin away with a sense of guilt. She'd forgotten all about the army doctor. How could she evoke such memories? She'd only ripped him apart more.

"John, I-I…" An apology died on her lips as he walked towards her, as if in a trance, a single tear sliding down his nose.

"John?" she asked softly as they drew face-to-face.

"I didn't know you could play the violin," he said disbelievingly. "That...that w-was…"

"Shaky. I know," Florence said self-deprecatingly, rubbing her forearm self-consciously.

"No," John said. "No. Florence, it was beautiful. It was...so very _Sherlock._ Like he...like he was _here._ A piece of himself."

"Literally, it was," Florence said, averting her eyes and staring at the piece. Silence fell before she spoke again.

"It's a piece for two. A duet," she said quietly. "There's supposed to be another part," she said. To her surprise, her eyes filled with more tears. "For a piano. _For me._ "

Her knees gave way and she slid to the floor, sobbing. John knelt down and folded his arms around her, his tears mixing with hers. Two colleagues. Two doctors. Two friends, trying to cope.

" _He wrote it for me,_ " Florence screamed hoarsely, burying her face in her hands. " _So we could play it together. Why did he leave me behind, it's a beat with no melody!"_

"Shh, I know, I know," John murmured, voice cracking every second.

" _ **WHY DID HE LEAVE ME BEHIND,**_ " she screamed, tears falling into her hands.

John pried Florence's hands off of her face and forced her to turn around so they were nearly nose-to-nose. "Don't go with him," he pleaded, dark blue eyes showing the hurt he held inside. " _Don't go with him._ We need you to help us pick up the pieces."

"My brother left me behind," she said, voice cracking and shuddering like a broken statue in the midst of an earthquake. "He left me behind and I can't even go to meet him."

"Don't go, Florence. Please don't go, I can't lose you, we can't lose you."

The two friends held each other. Trying to cope, trying to face the music.

They didn't see it, but a slip of a shadow stood at the door, collar turned up, curly hair a mess, heterochromatic eyes glimmering with regret. He watched his two friends grieving.

He was forced to turn away and noiselessly slip down the stairs and out the door.

 _ **And nobody came.**_


	10. Finale (Epilogue): Wrongs Made Right

**Epilogue**

 **Wrongs Made Right**

 _TWO YEARS LATER_

* * *

 ** _Time to clear my little brother's name. Time to make all of this right._**

Florence stood in front of her mirror and stared at herself as she got ready for the hearing to clear Sherlock's name. She was nearly forty now, and was starting to feel it. _This pediatrician is getting old_ , she noted wryly. The tightness that had taken up residence in her shoulders ever since Lazarus went into effect was a constant reminder of the lies she and Molly had told to save three people's lives.  
 _SMACK!  
Florence stood back from Mycroft angrily, hand ready to deliver another punch to his nose.  
"Bee, what the-"  
Her brother looked up at her painfully, and she felt a swoop of guilt inside her as he massaged his nose. But she interrupted him anyway.  
"I could've increased the force of that and broken your nose. I'm a doctor, Mycroft. I know where to inflict the most painful strikes. Don't you dare suggest things like what you just said-"  
"Florence, you talk like John," Mycroft interrupted. "Have you, perchance, been spending more time with him and...Mary?"  
"Shut up. That's not what we're talking about," Florence stabbed a finger at him angrily. "How DARE you suggest that you could reveal my lies to the people I lied to? No, Mycroft. I will not permit you to break me like that."  
Anthea nervously massaged her midsection. Florence noticed she was slightly...rounder than usual. She watched her friend out of the corner of her eye to examine further.  
"You will not PERMIT me?" Mycroft stood up slowly, eyes flashing in anger. "Bee, do you know the extent of my power? What I can do? The connections I hold? Threats will not work on me, sister dear. Especially because if I make them, then they CAN and WILL be followed through with. I AM the-"  
"Mycroft," Anthea said warningly. "Drop it. Now. Both of you! You know I cannot stand these spats in my...state."  
Mycroft stared sullenly at Florence, then turned his gaze to Anthea. His intense stare softened considerably and he sighed. Turning back to Florence, he muttered, "Fine. I concede it. I will not disclose your role in the operation. Anthea is my witness."  
"Thank you for understanding," Florence said finally, stepping forward and giving him a sisterly peck on the cheek before cupping his face sadly and heading to the door.  
Before she left, she remembered something and turned to Anthea and Mycroft.  
"Congratulations," she told them both. "Mummy will be ecstatic."  
She clicked the door shut behind her_.  
Back at her mirror, she sighed heavily and applied a subtle layer of lipstick before staring at herself once more. Reaching for her wire-rimmed spectacles nearby, she picked up a cloth with her other hand and meticulously wiped them until every speck and smudge had disappeared. Finally, she got up, put them on, and examined herself in the mirror solemnly. She was wearing a dark blue dress that Anthea had somehow procured for her in her size, and she had to admit that it fit perfectly. She realized with a pang that the dress' particular shade of blue greatly resembled the scarf Sherlock used to wear. She gently picked up the blazer Anthea had given her and shrugged it on. Checking herself in the mirror, she smoothed and straightened herself out until she was satisfied with the results. She adjusted the plait she'd wound into a knot at the back of her head, shook out her bangs gently, and gave herself a nod of approval.

Suddenly, her mobile buzzed with a text. Florence grabbed the phone off of the table, picked up her purse, and opened the text.

 _Ready, Florence? -Dr. Hooper_

Florence quirked a small smile at receiving the text from her best friend and typed out a reply to Molly.

 _Physically, yes. Emotionally, no. You? -Dr. Holmes_

Soon, two replies announced themselves with another buzz as Florence quietly made her way down the stairs.

 _Well...me too. -Dr. Hooper_

 _Oh...Greg just told me to tell you not to take your bicycle. We're picking you up in a police car so you won't be accosted by the media too much. We don't want a repeat of...you know. -Dr. Hooper_

Florence paused with a gulp, one hand on the doorknob.

She'd forgotten about the bloody media. How could she?

For days after Sherlock fell, she had lived the life of a hermit with John as the media shouted outside the door for _answers._ Her patients' guardians didn't say anything, just looked at her like _I'm sorry your brother turned out to be a fraud._ Florence hated the pity bestowed on her by various parties and longed to scream to the world, _MY BROTHER IS ALIVE! HE IS NOT A FAKE...YOU ARE ALL BLAMING THE WRONG MAN!_

But...she couldn't.

Yanked back to the present by the clamor of reporters outside, she gulped again. John wasn't there to help her. He'd moved in with his girlfriend (and Florence's new friend) Mary Morstan and he could do nothing to help Florence now. She would have to deal with the media alone.

Her mobile buzzed again. This time, it was Lestrade who was calling her. Florence pressed _Accept Call_ and held the phone to her ear.

"Hello, Dr. Florence Holmes speaking."

"Florence. Ah. Hello." Lestrade cleared his throat from the other end of the line. "Right. Ah. I'm kind of stuck outside 221B. Word of warning, you've got quite a crowd outside your door. Is John with you?"

"No," Florence replied, quite put out.

"Okay. I'm going to help you. Just keep your head down and ignore all questions. Wait for me, alright?"

"Alright. Thanks." The line disconnected and Florence shoved her mobile into her purse, straightened herself out, and waited solemnly, as if for the guillotine.

A car door slammed, and the clamor grew. _Greg, thank God,_ Florence thought anxiously. Suddenly, she heard a knock at the door. Florence took a deep, cleansing breath and opened it, coming face to face with the weary DI.

"Let's go," he mouthed. Florence nodded and he grasped her hand, leading her through the crowd. A security detail clad in black held back the reporters as they shouted out questions.

"What is your relation to the boffin detective?"

"Where is Dr. Watson?"

 _Ignore them._

Lestrade threw open the back door and let Florence slide inside the car, camera flashes popping left and right until he slammed the door and plunged the car into merciful silence.

The figure in the front passenger seat turned around. "Hello, Florence," Molly said softly, catching her eye.

Florence nodded a short greeting to Molly. "Hi," she said softly. "Don't be nervous, Molls," she added, seeing her friend's anxious face. "It's all scripted. Sherlock's name's been cleared ages ago."

It's just...it's just so _hard,_ " Florence admitted.

The two friends quickly fell silent as the driver door was wrenched open and Greg practically leaped inside the car. "Let's go," he announced as soon as the door slammed. "Bloody paparazzi won't let up," he growled in absolute annoyance as he fastened his belt and gunned the engine.

Florence was glad she'd put on her seatbelt as Greg expertly maneuvered the car through the crush of traffic, occasionally slamming on the brakes.

"Greg," Molly said placatingly. "Greg, don't lose your temper. Deep breaths."

The DI sighed heavily and turned onto the next street.

* * *

"Ms. Holmes, please state your full name for the record."

Florence pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose and raised her chin solemnly as she spoke.

"Florence Margaret Holmes."

Florence sat in a desk-type chair, a wooden desk and microphone in front of her. Clearing her throat quietly, she softly adjusted the microphone. She couldn't risk anything being misheard by the panel, or Sherlock's name would never be cleared.

"Ms. Holmes," a woman began solemnly. "What are, or were, your connections to the Holmes family? Specifically, what were your connections to the late Sherlock Holmes?"

 _This question. They had to bring up this question._

In front of all the media, in front of the world, she said simply, "I am...no, I _was,_ " she quickly covered up her slip, heart pounding in her throat. _Perhaps then people will believe that I'm still in denial over my brother's death?_ "I _was_ his older sister."

Two officials turned to each other and whispered for a few seconds while the first woman continued questioning. "How much of an age difference was there between you and Sherlock?"

 _Why the hell is she asking me this, again?_

"About ten months."

A man to the first woman's right leaned into his microphone, indicating that he wanted to speak. The woman nodded once in approval and he spoke.

"Ms. Holmes, our records indicate that you are a current resident of London. Have you been living in London with your brother since he first started solving cases with Dr. John Watson in 2010?"

All of a sudden, Florence remembered John. Would he be attending? Would he be speaking?

"No," Florence said quietly. "I haven't."

"Where were you, then, and when and why did you come to London?"

"I was a pediatrician at a clinic in the north of England," Florence said truthfully, but was then interrupted by the man.

"You'll have to give us employment records after this hearing," he said sharply. A few around the table nodded in agreement.

"That is easily done," the first woman who had questioned Florence said placatingly. "Ms. Holmes, please continue."

"As for when and why I came here…" Here she trailed off, thinking about how she would go about disclosing her past. "In 2012. That's when I went to visit Sherlock. I'd heard from close family that he'd been solving crimes in London and I wanted to see how he was doing. And...well, Sherlock convinced me to stay to live here."

The man nodded, satisfied, and leaned back. Another woman leaned into her microphone, wordlessly asking permission to speak. The first woman granted it, and she began. "Please describe to us, to the best of your ability, what you saw of Sherlock's involvement with the police force."

Nods of approval could be seen around the table.

"I was not actually with my brother when he solved cases," she explained. "This was because I had begun my own job here in London and did not have time to watch him solving cases. As a result, all I knew was that cases would come to him either by people seeking help, or by the force coming to ask him to assist in seemingly impossible cases. Since my brother's a graduate chemist, he would also work on toxicology and whatnot."

A few around the table whispered to each other. One leaned over to the first questioner and muttered something in her ear. Silently, the panel all looked at each other and agreed on a consensus. Florence felt unattached, floating in nothingness as she watched them silently debate.

The first woman leaned into her microphone.

"In all the time you've lived in London, were there any significant occurrences where you found that your brother was withholding information about his actions from you? Any time where you felt that things were being kept from you?"

Finally, Florence understood why the panel's questions had been so specific, so personal. They wanted to do a psychological analysis of Sherlock, to see whether he had the psychological capacity to mastermind and set up crimes to make himself look like a genius, which had been the tabloid opinion ever since the Fall. Florence grudgingly had to admit that it was a good way to go about it, to recruit a witness closer than any other friend in London, a witness that had known the man since childhood. Sherlock's own sister.

"The fact of the matter is that my relationship with my brother was the complete _opposite,_ " Florence sighed, folding her hands on the table sadly. "We could talk openly with each other, no matter how old we were. Even when we were small, Sherlock could trust me with his deepest fears. That hasn't ever changed. Sherlock would always let me know where he was going and what he would do, and I could always ask around to make sure he was telling the truth, which he was, all the time. Since John...I mean Dr. Watson, my good friend and colleague, was always around him, I could always depend on him for a straight answer, for good or ill."

The panel nodded around at each other.

The first woman leaned back into the microphone. "You will be called back by the panel if further need for questioning arises. Thank you for your time, you are dismissed."

Relieved, Florence nodded. "Thank you," she said clearly and got up from her chair, straightening herself out. Camera flashes popped everywhere as Florence left to sit with the other witnesses. Journalists' pencils and pens scratched on notepads.

"Molly Elizabeth Hooper," the woman called out.

And Florence sat down.

As the proceedings went by, Florence had to admit that Mycroft had scripted his witnesses well. Collectively, they served to tell a story, the story of a man whose internal conflict made him find solace in doing what he did best: helping others with his mind, solving cases that were seemingly impossible, and offering ready assistance for those who asked.

By the end of the hearing, it was obvious to see that the panel believed Sherlock to be not guilty, cleared of any and all criminal charges set against him in the time leading up to his suicide.

Florence, Molly, and Lestrade joyfully exited the courtroom, breaking into the cool air of the afternoon. Florence fully grinned for the first time in months as she saw reporters speaking about _innocent, wonder-worker, genius._

No more did she hear the words _fake, fraud, wolf in sheep's clothing._

And she watched as the people around her took back all the things they'd said about her brother, now that the evidence of his innocence was right in front of them!

 _What a shame. Look at what we've thought of him, and he killed himself. But now, he's innocent! We all have his blood on our hands._

 _The world is a much darker place without Sherlock Holmes._

 _We need more people like him!_

 _My son, he so wants to go into law enforcement now ever since that Sherlock Holmes got popular. And you know, I'm not stopping him! He always said that there was no way Holmes could be a fake. I feel so ashamed that I didn't believe him!_

Florence drank everything in and smiled thinly as she, Molly, and Lestrade sallied forth to the nearest pub for a celebration.

They took up a table in the corner and ordered food and drinks. Lestrade got himself a few pints and Florence and Molly got themselves sparkling waters as they chatted happily. As Florence sipped, she laughed excitedly and found that she hadn't felt more alive in months than she did here, talking and laughing merrily with her friends.

And she wished Sherlock was here…

* * *

Whistling a happy tune, Florence unlocked the door and walked into 221B, feeling slightly giddy. Despite her aversion of alcohol, Greg had convinced her into some getting some wine. She'd heard of the possible heart benefits of red wine and had shrugged it off, getting a single glass and silently toasting her brother before smiling and tipping it back.

She'd coughed as the wine hit her throat, nearly spouting it back out again and sending Greg into a gale of frenzied laughter and Molly into nervous giggles. Swallowing, she'd swatted at the DI quickly. He'd had quite a few more glasses since his first order, and he was rather sluggish. Florence was intrigued and intended to study his reflexes under the influence, but conversation had turned into other things and she'd forgotten all about it.

Shutting the door, Florence paused on her way up the stairs and called out, "Yoo-hoo, Mrs. Hudson, I'm back."

Mrs. Hudson paused her radio program. "Out for a while, eh? Isn't that good, how they cleared your brother of all charges? I knew it, there was absolutely nothing to blame him for. An innocent man, our Sherlock. Have you been celebrating all this time?"

"Mmhm," Florence hummed, beginning to ascend the stairs. "With Greg and Molly. Well, just going to turn in now. It's been quite a long day. Wake me if you need anything, Mrs. Hudson!" she called out the last bit.

"Alright, Florence dear," the landlady called back.

As Florence crossed the threshold into the sitting room, she suddenly felt extremely top-heavy and dumped her things on the coffee table before taking her spectacles off, unbuttoning her blazer, slinging it over John's old chair, giving the Union Jack pillow a solemn pat, and collapsing into Sherlock's former chair. Closing her eyes, she could just make out a trace of Sherlock's cologne in the edgy chair. After a bit, she wearily staggered to her feet and tottered to the couch, collapsing onto it, closing her eyes, and falling asleep.

She was awakened suddenly in the middle of the night. Someone, presumably Mrs. Hudson herself, had shut off the lights, leaving the sitting room completely dark. Raising herself on an elbow, Florence twisted herself around to peer at the door. It was pushed almost completely shut, leaving a tiny chink of light flooding across the room.

Florence tried to figure out what had woken her. Presumably it was a noise that had roused her from sleep, and she tried to reason what the noise could be. Maybe a door?

Suddenly, a thin scream of fright echoed from downstairs and Florence nearly catapulted to her feet before feeling a wave of dizziness overcoming her. Clapping a hand to her head, she mentally cursed Greg for persuading her to have that glass of wine and sank back into the couch, breathing heavily.

She lay like that for a bit before she heard the creak of a footstep on the stairs and whipped back into the couch, trying desperately to calm her racing heartbeat and pretend to be asleep.

 _Creak._

Where was Mrs. Hudson?

Was she all right?

What had happened to her?

 _Why did I have that glass of wine…_

 _Creak._

The door opened slowly. Florence watched through half-closed eyes as the tiny chink of light expanded, and glowed, and grew, and a shadow appeared in the doorway.

Florence relaxed her limbs, hoping that she was giving a good impression of a sleeping person.

She heard the unknown figure give a soft "oh" and creep closer to her.

For a second she could dimly see the slip of a figure, definitely male, stand over her. Then, in one swift movement, the figure gently lifted her off the couch.

 _This is it, the end, the conclusion,_ she couldn't help but think wildly.

She felt herself being carried down the hallway to somewhere she hadn't seen in months: Sherlock's room.

 _No! If this is my end, I don't want it to be in my little brother's room!_

 _Please, don't let this story end where it began!_

But the figure gently pushed the door open with his foot and tucked Florence into Sherlock's bed.

Buried in the blankets and pillows, exhaustion swept over her like a wave...and she couldn't help but fall asleep.

* * *

Gray-blue eyes blinked open, and almost immediately flicked back shut in the slanting light of the day.

Florence groaned in annoyance and rubbed her face. Why had she woken up…why was she in Sherlock's room...

And suddenly, everything came flooding back.

And she suddenly realized that she wasn't alone.

Another suit-clad, tall person was lying on the other side of the bed, head muffled under a pillow.

Florence practically fell out of the bed, vaulted to her feet, and clapped a hand over her mouth to stifle her scream of pure fear. Running to the kitchen, she rifled through Sherlock's old experiments and resurfaced with a handy scalpel before rushing back to the bedroom, scalpel clutched with a shaking hand.

She stood at the edge of the bed and prepared herself.

"And who the _hell-"_ she said fiercely, ripping off the pillow and brandishing the scalpel…

And stopped in shock as the person rolled over and stared right into her eyes.

Heterochromatic blue-green eyes crinkled into a smile.

"Just like old times, eh," William Sherlock Scott Holmes grinned in a way that would have been positively terrifying if you hadn't known him for the entirety of your lifespan. "You'd be scared of thunderstorms and sneak into my bed for the night."

"Sherlock," Florence said blankly, dropping the scalpel to the floor with a clatter.

"Not dead, sister dear," he said, stretching himself out as he clambered into a sitting position. "And I have a piano composition for you."

* * *

 _Three weeks later_

"I've got the champagne," Molly called out gaily as she sidled into the sitting room.

"Cheers," Greg yelled, slapping John on the back as Sherlock stood by with a marked expression of disapproval on his face.

Mycroft had his sleeves rolled up as he carried a cheese tray to the mantelpiece. Anthea followed, hands on her hips, rolling her eyes and calling, "Of _course_ I can carry that, Myc, don't overreact!"

John's fiancée Mary stood with Florence near the new piano that had temporarily replaced the couch, underneath the infamous yellow smiley face graffitied on the wallpaper. Chatting happily, they waved Molly over as she set down the bottles of champagne on the desk and sallied over.

"Oi, 'Thea!" Florence yelled across the room to her friend. "Come join the parliament!"

She smiled and slowly made her way across the room to them.

"Congratulations," the politician said graciously, eyeing Mary's and Molly's engagement rings.

"I should say the same," Mary laughed easily with a toss of her light hair, pale eyes glittering as she analyzed the government woman's figure.

Molly chuckled merrily, brown eyes sparkling.

"We should make up a name for ourselves," Florence pointed out cheekily, leaning against the piano. "We're practically a society of troubled women."

Molly laughed, a sound that hadn't been heard much in the past two years.

"How about _The Troubled Women of Baker Street_?" Mary suggested, smiling mischievously. "We all have our worries and troubles, why not have a laugh about it?"

Anthea surreptitiously cast a look at Florence, narrowing her eyes. Florence imperceptibly nodded in response. Mycroft and Anthea had told her about Mary's past. When Florence had confronted Mary about her life as an assassin, she readily admitted her previous allegiances and made Florence swear not to tell anyone, especially John.

 _I'm scared that he won't love me anymore once he knows what I've done,_ she'd admitted, pale green eyes oddly bright with tears.

And Florence had promised. They were friends, and friends always took care of each other.

And now, all of the leading ladies and gentlemen in the life of Sherlock Holmes were gathered to listen to the finale, the last summation of the journey Florence had traveled since she and her brother were little children...a journey whose path had gone through childhood and uni, separated into two after the Leaving, and merged back into one for the shortest of times, separating for two years before coming back, broader and more stable than ever. All because of the people around them who had loved and trusted and cared.

"That sounds good," Florence chimed in, and everyone agreed.

"Say," Mary changed the subject, "where's Tom, Molly?"

"I'm not quite sure," Molly said, face falling slightly. "Something with work, I suppose. He's been so...so _distant_ lately."

"Perhaps he's got a lot on his mind," Mary suggested, laying her hand on Molly's shoulder. "Don't worry too much. Besides, you've got John's and my wedding soon," she added, lips curling up into a playful smile. "That's something to look forward to!"

"Okay, why don't we just get started already," Sherlock huffed and headed for his violin. "Bee, let's tune."

"Fine, Mr. Authority," Florence snarked good-naturedly before opening up the upright piano and sitting herself down soundly, testing out a few notes and running through some scales before giving Sherlock an A.

They slowly worked through the strings until both of their instruments were tuned to each other. Finally, to check, Florence and Sherlock went through a few scales, listening intently for any glaring discrepancies.

When they finished and began looking for their sheet music, everyone began clapping appreciatively. Florence smiled as she heard Greg whistle loudly.

"That was only tuning," Sherlock grumped.

Florence swatted at her brother's leg, smirking as her hand came in contact with his pant leg and she heard a strangled " _Ouch!_ Okay, okay, I'll stop" from above.

Florence was turned with her back to their audience, which she was rather grateful for. But she could see the faces of her friends and family in the reflections of the glossy piano wood, all the people that had been supporting, loving, caring, for so long.

She turned around on the bench and stood up next to her brother.

"Ladies and gentlemen." Sherlock started simply. "Friends. Family. We come here tonight for an original composition by myself, entitled "She'll Always Be My Bee", intended as a duet for a piano and a violin. I am playing the violin, accompanied by Florence Margaret Holmes on the piano. Enjoy."

They bowed, their friends applauded, Greg whistled loudly, and Florence went to sit at the bench.

And as Sherlock nodded for Florence to start off the piece, she smiled and began with the A-flat arpeggio that always made her heart soar like an airplane, then let it settle ever so gently as the first high and thready notes of Sherlock's violin kicked in.

 _This is how it should be._

 _This is how it will be._

Florence felt wonderfully, mercifully at peace.

* * *

 _Wow, thanks everyone! This has been such a fun story and I never thought it would get this far! I've had lots of good fun dreaming up stuff for this story, and I hope you had just as much fun reading it._

 _ **Thanks to all the reviewers (in chronological order)**_

 _ **LittleReaderOfBooks  
**_ _ **Maia  
**_ _ **Juliana Brandagamba  
**_ _ **Thepoisonrose  
**_ _ **Poison Ivy Adler**_

 _ **and all the unnamed Guest reviews.**_

 _Well. See you in the next story! :)_

 _Always,_

 _Rielle_

 **Coming soon on FanFiction and Archive Of Our Own:**

 **Blackbird Singing In The Dead Of Night**

 **U(Take These Broken Wings And Learn To Fly)**

 _ **A continuation/companion of this fic!**_

 ** _To be crossover with Cabin Pressure!_**


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